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WRITINGS
OF
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
•The
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., Limited
LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
WRITINGS
OF
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
EDITED BY
WORTHINGTON CHAUNCEY FORD
VOL. V
1814-1816
Nero f nrk
THE MACM1LLAN COMPANY
1915
All rights reserved
E~3i
Copyright, 1915
By MARY OGDEN ADAMS
Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1915.
JUN 3 !9i5
CU 4 06 141
CONTENTS
1814
PACE
January 2. To John Adams ...... i
Gallatin about to leave St. Petersburg. Curious
situation of the commissioners. Offers to treat from
Great Britain.
January 4. To R. G. Beasley ..... 4
American intelligence. No expectation of peace.
January 17. To Abigail Adams . . . . . 5
Intentions of Gallatin and Bayard. American news
by way of England. Battle of Lake Erie. Prevost's
dispatches. Lesson of the war.
V
January 24. To Thomas Boylston Adams ... 9
The ruler of Holland. Notification to consuls and pos-
sible explanation. Napoleon's fall.
January 29. To Robert Fulton . . . . .11
Issue of his patent subject to a specification and
model of boat.
February 5. To the Secretary of State ... 12
Interview with Count Romanzoff. Count Lieven's
dispatch. Romanzoff's desire to resign his office.
Character outlined. Relations with the Emperor.
Publications in the official gazette.
February 17. To John Adams ..... 18
A new peace commission. A new destination after
peace. The powers and France. Peace not remote in
Europe. Relations with Great Britain.
vi CONTENTS
PAGE
March 30. To Abigail Adams ..... 22
Has learned of the new peace commission. Hopes
to return to America before the end of the year. Opin-
ion of Gallatin's merits. Concessions. The allies
and France.
April 7. To the Secretary of State .... 27
Reported check in Britain's desire to negotiate.
Reasons for pursuing his journey. Mr. Harris.
April 7. To Senator Weydemeyer .... 29
Negotiations with Great Britain to be at Gothenburg.
Reasons for accepting the proposal. Error of Lord Cath-
cart. Is about to leave for Gothenburg.
April 15. To the Secretary of State ... 34
Brief interview with Weydemeyer. Cathcart's state-
ment a surprise. Object of the British Cabinet and
measures taken on mediation. Position of Russia.
Impressment of seamen a European issue.
April 25. To the Secretary of State • - • 39
Is about to leave for Gothenburg. Return of Harris.
Government of Sweden notified. Smith left as charge.
Need of a secretary.
May 12. To Abigail Adams ..... 42
Humiliation of France and Bonaparte. No confidence
in the allies except in Alexander. He will serve as
arbitrator.
May 13-June 2. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 44
War in Europe has ended in calm. No appointment
of British commissioners. The place of meeting. Com-
mercial stagnation in England.
May 28. To the Secretary of State ... 47
Change in the place of meeting proposed, but will go
to Gothenburg. Sees little prospect of a favorable result.
CONTENTS vii
PACE
June 12. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 48
Has lost his servant, but has a substitute. Desire of
a Frenchman to serve him. Officers of the ship and
naval strength.
June 25. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 50
First to arrive at Ghent. Change of destination and
his wishes. Impressions of Sweden and Holland. Rise
of Antwerp and fate of Belgium.
June 28. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 52
Changes in the old Stad-house at Amsterdam. Traces
of the Bonaparte family. Sober character of the people.
National airs.
July 2. To Louisa Catherine Adams 55
Popularity and moderation of the Emperor Alexander.
Wrangling over European sports.
July 3. To the Secretary of State .... 56
Ghent to have a British garrison. Journeyings of
the commissioners.
July 9. To Levett Harris ..... 57
His office announced to Russian government. Place
of meeting of no real importance.
July 12. To Louisa Catherine Adams 59
Todd and Carroll. Opinions on the probability of
peace. His own plans. American visitors. Recollec-
tions of a Dutch school. His birthday toasted by
Bayard. Harmony.
July 15. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 61
Distinguished visitors to Ghent. Marriage negotia-
tions for the hand of Princess Charlotte. Talk of a new
war.
Vlll
CONTENTS
PAGE
July 16. To Alexander Hill Everett ... 62
Edward Everett's <f> /3 k poem. An address to the
Charitable Fire Society and American principles.
July 19. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 64
Commissioners have taken a house. Obtained from
a French universalist. A question of wines.
July 22. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 65
Selection of Ghent meant delay. Clay, the attaches,
and Bayard. Will not get away as expected.
July 29. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 67
Debate in the House of Commons on the negotiation.
Lord Castlereagh's candor. Utterances of Vansittart
and Canning. Report of Madison's impeachment.
August 1. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 69
Removal to house and its consequences. Hughes as
an entertainer. Todd at Paris. British commissioners
delayed and the cause. Peace in Europe.
August 5. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 71
British commissioners about to come. Entertain-
ments at St. Petersburg and the Emperor's title.
American news in the newspapers. Religious festival at
Boston. Massachusetts politics. Lannuyer.
August 9. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 74
Arrival of the British commissioners. The speech of
the Prince Regent. Negotiation will not be of long con-
tinuance.
August 11. To the Secretary of State • • • 75
Arrival of the commissioners and the first conference.
Assurances of peace exchanged. Indian pacification and
boundary. Reply of the American commissioners on
propositions. Attempt to pledge the American pleni-
potentiaries to results. Protocols of conferences.
CONTENTS ix
PACE
August 16. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 82
American prospects not promising. A dinner to
Americans in Ghent and Adams' toast. Lord Hill's ex-
pedition.
August 17. To the Secretary of State ... 84
Cochrane's proclamation and British pretensions.
Gallatin and the Emperor Alexander. Europe de-
pendent upon Great Britain. Propositions from the
British commissioners. Probable rupture of the con-
ference and Lord Hill's expedition. Belgium and Hol-
land under one ruler.
August 19. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 88
Conferences suspended. Habits of living. Probable
stay at Ghent.
August 23. To Louisa Catherine Adams ... 90
Castlereagh at Ghent. A final exchange of notes.
Plans of the commissioners. Todd's interpretation of
his mother's wishes. Milligan's visit to Scotland.
Russell and de Cabre.
August 24. Answer to the British Commissioners . 93
Lord Castlereagh's proposition. Disposition for peace
unchanged. Question on the Indians. Practice of Euro-
pean nations. The lands of the Indians. Peace with
the natives broken by the English. Too much asked.
Objections to the proposed boundary. Military com-
mand of the lakes. Cession of territory. An amicable
warning.
August 26. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 102
Expects to leave Ghent in a few days. Harmony
among the Americans. No news from America.
August 29. To William Harris Crawford . . 104
Little prospect of a peace. Effect of a continuance of
the war on America. Preparations and coming dis-
asters. Cochrane's proclamation.
CONTENTS
PAGE
August 30. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 107
In hourly expectation of the final reply. A spat be-
tween Bayard and W. Adams.
August 31. To George Joy. ..... 109
Making a fortune from a peace. Relations with
William Adams.
September 5. To the Secretary of State . .110
Cause of delay on the part of the British Commis-
sioners. An interview with Goulburn. Conquest of
Canada. Disavowal of proclamations. The British
navy and slaves taken in America. Indian allies and ter-
ritories. Armed force on the lakes. Comments.
September 9. To Louisa Catherine Adams . .120
Believes the commission will not be dismissed as ex-
pected by all. An exchange, of notes. Number of
British negotiators. Praise for Gallatin and Bayard.
Visitors and a compliment.
September 9. Answer to the British Commissioners 122
Reasons for not discussing propositions. Relations
with the Indians and armaments on the lakes. Practice
of the British government. The American system.
September 10. To Abigail Adams . . .130
Intentions of the Smiths. Clay and Russell not
against the success of the mission. Progress of the
negotiation. Situation of the American commissioners.
Milligan's visit to Scotland and its consequence.
September 11. To Lafayette ..... 134
On visiting Paris and Victor de Tracy. Prospects of
the mission.
September 13. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 136
Continuation of the interchange of notes probable.
Summary of what has passed. No concession.
CONTENTS xi
PAGE
September 13. To George Joy ..... 138
Will be happy to see him unless commercial specula-
tion be his object. Abuse of access and information.
September 14. To William Harris Crawford . . 139
France and the rights of neutrality. The negotiation
has become arrant trifling. The United States to be a
great naval and military power.
September 16. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 141
Commission to part. Note sent to England. English
press on the situation. A rumored apology.
September 23. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 143
Last note in preparation, as is believed. Changes in
the British demands. News from England. His own
part in preparing papers. Doubt of the future.
September 27. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 145
Policy of the British government. Discussion has
been preliminary only. A suggestion of his own. ac-
cepted. Real debate with the Privy Council. Manner
of preparing notes. Treatment of his matter. Gallatin's
influence.
October 4. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 148
A reminder. Destruction by the British at Washing-
ton. Weakness of the defense. > Must be prepared for
misfortunes. Sentiment of the Americans.
October 5. To William Harris Crawford . . 151
News from America. Clay optimistic on the outcome
of the negotiation. British misrepresentations.
October 7. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . .153
Destruction at Washington contrary to usages of civi-
lized nations. Cruelty in civil wars. Rejoicing in Eng-
land. Precipitate retreat of British.
xii CONTENTS
PAGE
October ii. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 155
Will remain some weeks longer. A new British note.
The Washington attack and European opinion. An at-
tempted defense.
October 14. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 158
The fourth British note. Has yielded to his colleagues.
Enemy not to be propitiated. Lawrence's last words.
Bayard on the vandalic attacks.
October 18. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 161
The Congress of Vienna and peace. Pamphlets by
Carnot and Chateaubriand. The Bourbon rule. The
French army.
October 18. To William Harris Crawford . . 163
Object of British policy. No good reason for breaking
off the negotiation. Danger of delay.
October 25. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 164
Protracting the negotiation. New pretensions ad-
vanced and rejected. Trials to be endured.
October 25. To Abigail Adams ..... 166
Congratulations on jubilee year. How peace may be
secured. England at the Congress of Vienna. Memorial
of Tallyrand.
October 25. To the Secretary of State . . . 168
Detention of the Chauncey. Reported violation of the
cartel. Conduct of the agent. Delay the British policy.
Why no rupture has taken place. Basis of uti possidetis
rejected. Congress of Vienna and peace.
October 28. To Louisa Catherine Ada:.;s . . . 174
Social activity at Ghent. Isolation of the British
Commissioners. Retreat of Prevost.
CONTENTS xiii
PAGE
November 4. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 176
Newspapers as a source of information. Conditions
on which peace will turn.
November 6. To William Harris Crawford . .180
Negotiation spinning out. Question of etiquette on
exchange of projets.
November 8. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 178
Preparing a reply to the British note. Pakenham
sent to America. Wellington may go.
November 11. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 181
War will probably continue. Draft of treaty sent to
the British Commissioners. His own part in it. The
Regent's speech to Parliament.
November 14. To George Joy . . . .184
Nature of civil war. Is something of an optimist.
November 15. To Levett Harris . . . .186
Why the negotiation has been kept open. Situation
in America. General issue of campaign yet to come.
A threat of retaliation.
November 15. To Louisa Catherine Adams . .188
Concert and ball. The theatrical entertainments.
Expects bad news from America. The Regent's speech
and the English policy. Prevost and retaliation.
November 17. To William Harris Crawford . . 192
The campaign in America. Debate on the Regent's
speech. What has been done in the negotiation. The
fisheries. Cruel conduct of the war. The European
press. Position of France at Vienna.
November 18. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 195
Little expectation of a peace. Success of Tallyrand
at Vienna. Predominance of Great Britain.
xiv CONTENTS
PAGE
November 20. To the Secretary of State . . 198
Passports and dispatches. The Transit and instruc-
tions. Course of the negotiation. Belief that the
United States will sink before Britain.
November 22. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 202
English newspapers on the negotiation. A rupture
anticipated. Conduct of the British commissioners.
As to a projet of a treaty. The destruction at Washing-
ton. Measure of W. Adams.
November 23. To Abigail Adams .... 205
An outline of the negotiation. British military
achievements. Boast of the Earl of Liverpool. The
Congress at Vienna. The situation at Ghent.
November 24. To Levett Harris .... 209
Opinion at St. Petersburg and of the British ministry.
Malice against America. Must be prepared for desola-
tion. Humiliating failures. Publication of the com-
mission's dispatches.
November 25. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 212
Good effect produced by the publication of dis-
patches. Change in the British position. Annoyance
shown and possible end of the mission. Approval of
the President and his own proposal validated by in-
structions. The Hartford Convention.
November 27. To Peter Paul Francis De Grand . 215
The progress of the negotiation. Triumph of Amer-
ican mariners. Withholding of reports in England. An
atrocious system of warfare.
November 29. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 218
Recall of the Dutch minister to the United States.
Proceedings of the Massachusetts legislature. A reply
from the British Commissioners. Trifles and principles.
CONTENTS sv
PAGE
England inclined towards peace. Federal politics and
changes in the government.
December 2. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 221
More cheering news from the United States. His col-
leagues and concession. Language softened to ad-
vantage. Clinging to little things. Result of a confer-
ence. Threats met, and readiness for a treaty. Social
enjoyments.
December 6. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 225
His colleagues sanguine of a treaty. Why he doubts
the sincerity of the British. Change in tone of English
journals. The strolling players.
December 8. To Levett Harris ..... 227
Great Britain makes it a war of conquest. Maritime
questions not to be discussed at Vienna. Situation of
the negotiation.
December 9. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 229
The trying moment at hand. Mutual conciliation
among his colleagues.
December 12. Note to the British Commissioners . 231
Failure of conferences to produce an agreement.
Restoration of captured territory. Islands in Passa-
maquoddy Bay. Navigation of the Mississippi.
December 13. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 235
The negotiation labors. Suppression of feeling. De-
pendence of the British Commissioners. The Duke of
Wellington at Paris.
December 16. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 237
His best friend. Character of his colleagues and irri-
tability. Greatest differences with Clay. Their position
not so favorable. Hail Columbia and the Hanoverian
officers.
xvi CONTENTS
PAGE
December 20. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 241
General belief in a peace. The London Times makes
charges against the American mission. Milligan's con-
duct.
December 23. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 243
Inquisitive visitors. An insistent correspondent. His
own state of peculiar anxiety. Treaty, if signed, will
give little satisfaction to either nation. England pre-
pares for a new campaign.
December 24. To Abigail Adams .... 247
A treaty of peace signed. Will go to Paris and await
orders. Character of the peace.
December 26. To John Adams ..... 248
Manner of sending the treaty to America. Informa-
tion wanted on the fisheries. Question of rights and
liberties. What passed in the negotiation. War and
treaties. Massachusetts' interests in the result. Har-
mony among the Americans has been constant.
December 27. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 253
The signing and dispatching of the treaty. Bentzon's
energy. Announcement at Ghent. Treaty sent to the
United States. Movements of the Commissioners.
May be appointed to England. She will join him in
Paris.
December 30. To Louisa Catherine Adams . 256
Joy in share in restoring peace to the world. Publica-
tion of the treaty. Restoration of captures at sea.
1815
January 2. To James A. Bayard, Henry Clay and
Jonathan Russell ...... 258
Custody of the papers of the mission. Willingness to
surrender them under certain conditions. Cannot
comply with requisition.
CONTENTS xvii
PAGE
January 3. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 260
Terms in treaty are of perfect reciprocity, but no sub-
ject of dispute settled. Stock-jobbing in London.
Virulence of the Times. Music and celebrations. Tak-
ing leave of the Empress mother.
January 6. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 263
New-year's address on Vienna and Ghent. The ques-
tion of time.
January 13. To Levett Harris ..... 264
Courtesy of the Duke of Wellington to be imitated.
Has had no correspondence with Count Nesselrode.
January 10-17. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . 266
Party violence in Congress. The New England con-
federation. Employment of Gallatin. Sale of household
effects.
January 20. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 268
The treaty in America and Massachusetts. The
islands in Passamaquoddy Bay. The fishing right and
the navigation of the Mississippi. Position of the
Indians.
January 24. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 272
A portrait by Van Huffel. How Hail Columbia was
introduced. A fair lady and gallantry.
January 27. To Louisa Catherine Adams . . . 274
Has left Ghent. Inertia of matter. Kind treatment
received from the people of Ghent. Change in Sweden.
February 21. To Abigail Adams .... 277
Impressions of Paris after thirty years. Madame de
Stael and the Lafayettes. His colleagues of Ghent. Has
been presented to the king. The Louvre.
February 28. Commission ..... 276
xviii CONTENTS
PAGE
February 23. To the Secretary of State . . . 281
Manner of sending the treaty. A treaty of commerce
with Great Britain. The matter of maritime rights.
Supremacy of England. Questions to be negotiated.
March 2. To Levett Harris ..... 285
The Congress of Vienna and the treaty of Ghent.
Monument to the Queen of Prussia.
March 13. Instructions ...... 286
Execution of the treaty. Surrender of occupied terri-
tory, and boundary. Taking away of slaves. Discrimi-
nating duties. Order of signatures in treaties.
March 19. To Abigail Adams ..... 290
Treaty of Ghent ratified by the United States.
Peace on the ocean. Landing of Napoleon in France and
triumphant progress towards Paris. Defection of the
army. Gallatin and Bayard. Mrs. Adams has left St.
Petersburg.
March 21. To John Adams ..... 294
Napoleon at Paris. Changes in name of the Journal.
Quiet entrance of Napoelon. The King set out for Lille.
Books desired.
April 22. To Abigail Adams ..... 299
Arrival of Mrs. Adams from St. Petersburg. In-
fluence of Napoleon. Little opposition to his progress.
The army and holders of national property. Action of
the allies. The Ghent commissioners.
April 24. To John Adams ...... 304
The English mission. A treaty of commerce with
Great Britain. The fisheries question. No pacific senti-
ments towards America. Dependence on England of
the Bourbons and their weakness. War against Napo-
leon. The French constitution.
CONTENTS xix
PA3K
April 24. To the Secretary of the Treasury . .310
Sale of American stock in Europe. Prices in America
and in Europe.
April 28. To Peter Paul Francis De Grand . .312
An unfinished letter. Effect of the war in raising esti-
mation of the United States. Navy to be cherished.
Faction and the treaty. The Hartford Convention.
Napoleon and Europe.
June 5. To George William Erving . . . 317
American newspapers. The elections in Massachu-
setts. Naval prints.
June 23. To the Secretary of State . . 319
Interview with Lord Castlereagh. Assurances of
peace. Question of seamen. The Dartmoor prison in-
quest. A boundary commission. Restoration of slaves
and a treaty of commerce. Appointment of Charles
Bagot.
July 11. To Willem and Jan Willink . . -325
Prices of American stock and payment of interest on
loans.
July 18. To Christopher Hughes .... 326
The Ghent commissioners' plans. The treaty of com-
merce. Shaler's diplomacy.
July 25. To William Eustis . . . . .328
Peace and party politics in the United States. Part
played by New England.
July 27. To Alexander Hill Everett . . . 330
His entrance into the diplomatic career and his re-
quests. European seductions and corruptions. Recol-
lections of The Hague. Message to Veerman.
xx CONTENTS
PAGE
July 28. To Levett Harris . . . . -332
Fulton's steamboat privileges in Russia. Measures
to secure its advantages.
August 9. To Lord Castlereagh . . . -334
Restoration of slaves under the treaty of Ghent.
Changes in propositions during negotiations. The fort
at Michillimackinac.
August 15. To the Secretary of State . 339
Treaty with Algiers, and protection of American
commerce.
August 15. To Francis Freeling .... 340
Question on the address of a letter.
August 17. To G. H. Freeling ..... 340
Explanation is accepted, but states his proper official
title and character.
August 20. To R. G. Beasley ..... 341
As to aid for Thomas Nelson. Real cases of distress.
August 22. To the Secretary of State . . . 343
Abolition of discriminating duties. Time convention
operates. Orders of Council on American trade. Re-
strictions as to St. Helena. The Louisiana convention
as a precedent. Michillimackinac. Removal of slaves
and the treaty provisions. Intentions of the negotiators.
Charges against British naval officers. Little prospect
of satisfaction.
August 27. To Benjamin Waterhouse . . . 353
Travels of his letters. Boston federalist newspapers
and the Ghent treaty. Governor Strong's assertion.
The British navy and impressment. France and the
allies.
CONTENTS xxi
I'V.K
August 29. To the Secretary of State . . -357
Discriminating duties. An instance of impressments.
Distress of seamen. Michillimackinac and naval arma-
ment on the lakes.
August 31. To John Adams ..... 360
The fisheries and New England's policy. The Trini-
tarian and Unitarian controversy. Persecution in Eu-
rope. Inchiquins Letters. Situation of France.
August 31. To William Eustis ..... 365
Conquered France. The Algerian pirates. Dutch
commerce and prices of American stock. British per-
formance of the Ghent treaty. Paper constitutions.
September 5. To the Secretary of State . . 367
Compensation for slaves taken away after the peace.
Need of authenticated papers. Michillimackinac.
Peace in Europe. Hostile feelings against America.
September 9. To Joseph Hall ..... 372
Shortsightedness of the federalists. The Ghent
treaty and the sine qua non. American character in
Europe. Lessons of the war.
September 19. To the Secretary of State . . 377
Hostilities against the United States. Interview with
Lord Bathurst. Order on the fisheries. The question
of right under treaties. Western posts and Indian rela-
tions. Nicholls' treaty disavowed. Departure of Bagot.
Policy towards France.
September 20. To John Adams ..... 389
The fishery rights. Orders issued on the practice.
Lloyd and the British declaration at Ghent. Massachu-
setts must assert itself.
September 30. To the Secretary of State . . 394
Services of a secretary, James Grubb. English inten-
tions in South America. Auguste Annoni.
xxii CONTENTS
PAGE
October 2. To Thomas Reilly ..... 396
Crew of the Monticello.
October 4. To Mitchel King ..... 397
Copies of public records and publication of Ramsay's
history.
October 5. To William Plumer ..... 398
France has in turn become the victim. Prospects of
peace. Influence upon the United States. Need for
preparation. British spirit of commercial monopoly.
Historical works and periodicals. Tranquillity of
Europe.
October 7. To the Secretary of State . . . 403
Official requests and Consul Fox. English criticism
of the commercial convention with the United States.
The Floridas.
October 7. To Earl Bathurst ..... 406
Restitution or compensation for slaves of Downman.
Peculiar circumstances of the transaction.
October 9. To John Adams ..... 407
His position and its prospects. Questions to be dis-
cussed. Status of the fisheries. The commercial con-
vention. Economic situation of England. France not to
be feared. Religious controversy in Massachusetts.
October 10. To Jonathan Russell . . .412
Summary of incidents since parting. Negotiating a
commercial convention with Great Britain. Points of
difference. Gain of a formality in signing treaties. St.
Helena closed to American ships. Decatur and the
Barbary States. The Napoleon museum.
November 24. To John Adams . . . .418
Inability to write or to see friends. Uncertainty as to
expense allowances. The Massachusetts militia and
the navy.
CONTENTS xxiii
PAGE
November 28. To Sylvanus Bourne .... 420
Expenses of education at Harvard University. Books
for reading on international law.
November 29. To William Eustis .... 423
Prospects of peace between the United States and
Great Britain. The fisheries. The national finances.
November 29. To William Shaler .... 426
The treaty with Algiers. Europe will follow the ex-
ample. No more tribute.
November 30. To John Thornton Kirkland . . 428
Visit from the astronomer Bond. Books for the
University. Religious persecution in Europe. Treat-
ment of France by the powers.
December 5. To Abigail Adams . . . 431
The Unitarian controversy and Channing's pamphlet.
His own conclusions. Priestley's position.
December 6. To Alexander Hill Everett. . . 436
Visit to Waterloo. St. Pierre's idea of perpetual peace.
Malthus and his theory of population.
December 14. To the Secretary of State . 439
Claims against Great Britain for losses in the late war.
No hope of redress.
December 14. To Jonathan Russell .... 441
Criticism of the commercial convention. The fur
trade. Armaments on the lakes. Cheapness of the nec-
essaries of life in England an evil.
December 16. To John Adams ..... 445
The fishery clauses in treaties as interpreted by
Great Britain. Right must be maintained. Religious
intolerance in France. Conduct of the allies. Some
things to be gained.
XXIV
CONTENTS
PAGE
December — . To Lord Castlereagh .... 448
As to American seamen in want. Provisions of the
law. Burden in cases raised should be on Great Britain.
Pensions.
December 24. To James Madison . . . • 451
A pamphlet from one who desires to migrate to
America.
December 27. To Abigail Adams . . . -453
Wishes to return to the United States. The com-
mercial convention. American influence in the Mediter-
ranean. Feeling against the United States.
December 29. To Rufus King ..... 455
Trusts no impairment of mutual confidence. Intro-
duces Pursh.
1816
January 1. To George Joy ...... 45^
Pay of American consuls. Money not the only re-
ward of service.
January 5. To George Joy ...... 458
Kirkland on federalists.
January 5. To John Adams ..... 458
Unity and Trinity and the Athanasian creed. Argu-
ments of a Jesuit father. The President's message and
peace with Great Britain. Effect of low prices in Eng-
land. The Bank and the national debt.
January 8. To Lord Castlereagh .... 463
Undue discrimination on American ships in the ports
of Ireland. Asks for equal privilege with British vessels.
January 9. To Abigail Adams ..... 466
Departure of Bagot for America. Letter of John
Adams to Dr. Price. Position of the dissenters. Atti-
CONTENTS xxv
PAGE
tude towards the French Protestants. Origin of the
Lloyd letters. The Hallowells.
January 9. To the Secretary of State . . 470
Vessels taken within the Spanish jurisdiction.
January 22. To Lord Castlereagh .... 472
Rights and liberties in the fisheries. Nature of the
treaty of 1783. Termination of treaties by war. Perma-
nent stipulations. Acknowledgment of independence.
The treaty of 1783 in the Ghent treaty. The fishing lib-
erties. Distinction between right and liberty. Effect of
independence. Natural conditions.
January 22. To the Secretary of State . . . 487
Europe and the South Americans. Importance as
something to be desired. Peace with the United States.
January 31. To the Secretary of State . . . 491
New powers for further negotiations. The question
of seamen. Care for distressed sailors. Results of an
inquiry. Proposals submitted. Means of protecting
seamen.
February 8. To the Secretary of State . . . 497
Interview with Lord Castlereagh. Armaments on the
lakes. Sources of trouble. Specific examples. Nature
of the proposals. Cession of the Floridas. Relations
with Spain and South Americans. Downman's slaves.
Wishes of the government of the United States. Evi-
dence offered. Emigration from Ireland.
February 8. To Abigail Adams . . . • 511
A visit to the Copleys and to West.
February 17. To Lord Castlereagh . . . • 511
The treaty of Ghent on restoration of property cap-
tured. Action of British naval officers. Manner of
xxvi CONTENTS
PAGE
framing the stipulation. Lord Bathurst's statement.
Proper interpretation of the stipulation.
February 27. To William Plumer . . . 518
Possible connection between the Hartford Conven-
tion and a hurricane and influenza. Political and eco-
nomic relations of Great Britain. Taxes and agricultural
distress.
February 29. To John Adams ..... 520
Expulsion of the Jesuits from Russia. Reported diffi-
culties between the United States and Spain.
March 4. To Abigail Adams ..... 522
Impressions and experiences when last in Paris. Re-
ception of Napoleon at the theatre. The Napoleon
museum.
March 6. To the Secretary of State . . . 526
Discrimination in Ireland against American vessels.
Duties on cotton and light money. The renewal of the
property tax.
March 8. To Jonathan Russell .... 530
Cobbett and his paper. Distress in England. The
situation in the United States. Christopher Hughes and
Shaler.
March 12. To Lord Castlereagh .... 533
Representation on Downman's slaves. Captain
Barrie's statement examined. Violation of flags of truce.
Possible sources of information.
March 16. To Alexander Hill Everett . . . 537
Lessons to be drawn from the negotiation at Ghent.
Benefits to the United States. J. A. Smith, secretary of
legation. Everett's future prospects. Qualities of secre-
taries and failures. Should not remain in Europe too
long.
CONTENTS xxvii
PACK
March 25. To Abigail Adams ..... 542
His health and handwriting. Extent of his corre-
spondence and demands upon his services. Samples of
applications.
March 27. To Joseph Pitcairn 545
Order for books for Harvard University.
March 29. To William Eustis 546
Rumored difficulties with Onis. American finance.
Distress and taxes in England.
March 30. To the Secretary of State . . -55°
Deputies from South America. Relations between
the United States and Spain. Neutrality with South
America. Expeditions from Kentucky and Tennessee.
Conduct of Onis. Downman's slaves. Armaments on
the lakes.
March 31. To Henry Jackson ..... 556
American consuls in France.
WRITINGS
O F
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
WRITINGS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
TO JOHN ADAMS
St. Petersburg, 2 January, 1814.
My Dear Sir:
The last letters I have had the pleasure of receiving from
you are those of 1 and 2 July, and excepting them and others
of the same period from my mother and brother I have noth-
ing from America dated later than June. The communica-
tions are nearly annihilated, and but for the return of the
gentlemen who came out here on the extraordinary mission
and that of their companions, I should be deprived of all
means of transmitting a letter to my friends.
The Neptune, the vessel in which these gentlemen came,
and which they ordered in the beginning of November to
go and wait for them at Gothenburg, has effected her passage
to that port. Mr. Gallatin, who to this day has received
information of the decision of the Senate upon his nomina-
tion to this mission only through the medium of a newspaper,
intends leaving this place in the course of eight or ten days.
He has received a letter from one of his relations in Geneva,
proposing to meet him in Switzerland, and I believe con-
templates commencing his journey in that direction. You
will easily judge from your intimate knowledge of the usual
course of official transactions of the situation in which he
personally and his colleagues have been placed, with the
certain information now nearly three months since received
of the vote in Senate upon the nomination, and without any
authentic communication of the fact. As neither Mr.
1
z THE WRITINGS OF [1814
Bayard nor myself have received our commissions under the
appointment with advice and consent, Mr. Gallatin's powers
to act are still precisely the same as our own; and if the media-
tion had been accepted and the negotiation in progress, we
should have been thrown into a dilemma not a little awkward
and embarrassing. The British government, however,
peremptorily refused to treat with the United States under
the mediation of Russia, or as they expressed it, under any
mediation. This determination they communicated to
the Emperor Alexander at his headquarters, and from the
nature of the occupations which have occupied his time and
absorbed his attention no official communication has yet
been made to us of this event.1 Mr. Gallatin, on receiving
intelligence of the issue of his nomination in the Senate,
determined not to wait for official dispatches announcing
it; but as he has no other means of returning to the United
States than by the Neptune, and as we have been daily ex-
pecting the information from this government which will
authorize the departure of Mr. Bayard, he has been waiting
hitherto, until the state of the roads and the advancement
of the season have induced him to conclude upon his de-
parture without longer delay.2
The British government through an indirect channel have
offered to treat with the American envoys directly, either
at Gothenburg or in England, and intimated to them an in-
vitation to London for that purpose. As we have no powers
to treat otherwise than under the mediation, we could not
accept this invitation, but Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard
propose to avail themselves of it to stop in England on their
1 Cathcart communicated the refusal of the British government to the Russian
government September 25, 1813.
2 On the next day, January 3, Gallatin proposed to go near the Emperor's head-
quarters at Toplitz, and ask his intentions on the British proposals, a measure dis-
couraged by Adams. See Adams, Memoirs, January 3, 1814.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 3
return home, and to ascertain in a manner involving no
responsibility what the views of the British government are
in relation to a peace with the United States. These views
have, indeed, been made known to us in a manner sufficiently
intelligible to leave me little expectation that my colleagues
will find a favorable opportunity for bringing an accommoda-
tion to a successful issue; but the desire of our country
and of our government is so strong for peace that no honor-
able opportunity for attempting to accomplish it ought to
be neglected.
As the military and political revolutions in the north
of Europe have now opened a communication from this
country to England by the way of Holland, Mr. Gallatin
and Mr. Bayard intend to take that course instead of going
to Gothenburg. They propose ordering the Neptune to
Falmouth, and going by land themselves to Amsterdam.
The packets already pass between Helvoetsluys and Har-
wich, and will furnish them the means of conveyance to
England. As Mr. Gallatin takes his departure first, he will
make his \risit to Switzerland, and meet Mr. Bayard again
in Holland.
Mr. Payne Todd,1 Mrs. Madison's son, and Colonel Milli-
gan,2 who came out with Mr. Bayard, are going through
Sweden to Gothenburg, there to embark for England, in-
tending to wait for the arrival of other gentlemen there,
and it is by them that I now have the opportunity of writing
to you.
1 John Payne Todd, son of John Todd, of Philadelphia, and "Dolly" Payne.
2 George Milligan.
4 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
TO R. G. BEASLEY
St. Petersburg, 4 January, 1814.
Sir:
I have to acknowledge the receipt of your favors of 22
October, 5 and 19 November, with their enclosures, and to
thank you for them. The intelligence contained in the last
is of a pleasing nature, though less favorable than re-
ports which had been for some days circulating here upon
the authority of later accounts in English newspapers.
We had been flattered with expectations that the issue of
General Proctor's campaign had been more decisive than
General Harrison's dispatch now warrants us in believing,
and that Sir James L. Yeo's insulting charge against his
enemy of want of spirit had been answered more effectually
than by his seeking refuge in port from the pursuit of that
same enemy, and suffering his transports of troops and
convoys to be taken almost before his face, without attempt-
ing to protect them.
I know not upon what foundation any expectation can
be entertained in England of a speedy peace with the United
States. There is nothing in the English mode of carrying
on the war, and certainly nothing in their mode of meeting
the pacific overtures on our part, that has any tendency to
promote the return of peace. If they think the battle of
Leipzig, or even the dismemberment or partition of France,
will settle our question with them, they will find themselves
mistaken. If they have convinced themselves, as they have
labored to convince others, that we wage this war as allies
of Napoleon, they must find time to awaken from their
delusion. One of their poets remarks that a man may repeat
a tale so often as at last to credit his own lie. Some such
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 5
operation must have taken place in their minds to make
them consider us at this day as allies of Napoleon. . . .
I am, etc.
TO ABIGAIL ADAMS
St. Petersburg, 17 January, 1814.
I expected that Mr. Gallatin or Mr. Bayard would have
been the bearer of the last letter that I wrote you, which was
the close of the last year; but it was taken by Mr. Todd,
who with Colonel Milligan, Mr. Bayard's private secretary,
left this city about ten days since bound to England by the
way of Sweden. Mr. Gallatin's intention now is to go in a
week or ten days, but he takes his direction through Ger-
many to Holland. Perhaps he may go by the way of the
Emperor Alexander's headquarters. He has already taken
leave at court 1 and has his passports. Mr. Bayard has not,
but they will probably go together. Mr. Gallatin goes
upon the information he has received of the vote of the Sen-
ate upon his nomination, although he is yet without any
official communication of the fact. Mr. Bayard waits, be-
cause we have not yet received from this government any
official notification that the Emperor's offer of mediation
has been rejected by the British cabinet. His patience is
however so nearly exhausted that he intends to ask an
audience to take leave of the Empress mother and for his
passports, in time to take his departure with Mr. Gallatin
in the course of the next week.2 It will be yet many months
before they can reach the United States. Their journey to
Holland will scarcely be performed in less than six weeks.
Their purpose is to go from thence to England where Mr.
1 On the 13th — the Russian New Year.
2 He took leave on the 23d.
6 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
Bayard at least will wait for advices from our government.
They will scarcely get home before midsummer, and it may
be as long before you will receive this letter. I have no pros-
pect, however, of a shorter or of so safe a means of convey-
ance, and as I learn the cartels between the United States
and England are entirely stopped, I know not how I shall
find opportunities of writing to you hereafter. Hitherto
the occasions for transmitting the monthly letter have
never failed, and I can but hope that some new opening will
present itself to accomplish the same effect in future.
Your letter of 14 July is still the latest date that I have
directly from the United States. The only intelligence that
we receive from home is that which comes to us in the Eng-
lish newspapers; and how much of that is falsehood or mis-
representation we infer not only from the general character
of all paragraph-news in the British prints, but from the
lies which they have told about ourselves. Some time ago
they stated that the American envoys had asked to go to the
Emperor Alexander's headquarters and had been refused —
the Emperor alleging that there were no suitable accommo-
dations for their Excellencies. Since then they have asserted
that Lord Walpole had declared to this government that
the British ministry, having rejected their mediation, would
be well pleased that the American envoys should be dis-
missed, and that he was instructed to say so. Both these
paragraphs are totally unfounded. We have good reason
to conclude that almost all their news from America is
equally distorted from the truth. They have not been able
however to suppress the event of the naval action upon
Lake Erie. I have not seen Commodore Perry's account of
that affair; but it has been published in the English papers
and Sir George Prevost's letter announcing it to his govern-
ment contains a circumstance certainly not intended by
i8i4j JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 7
him to honor his enemy, but to which the annals of English
naval glory will not readily furnish a parallel. He says that
he has the knowledge of the facts only from the American
Commodore's dispatch, published in the American papers;
that he himself has no official report of it and can expect
none for a very long time, the British commander and all
his officers having been either killed or so disabled that
there was not one left to tell the tale.
This same Sir G. Prevost and Sir James L. Yeo, the British
Commodore on Lake Ontario, in their official reports have
charged Commodore Chauncey's squadron with want of
spirit. I believe it to be a mere hectoring bravado on the
part of Yeo, and I pray as fervently as Sir George himself
that Yeo may have had his opportunity of meeting Chauncey,
and not the opportunity of running away from it. We have
the account of Proctor's retreat and a report that his whole
force, excepting himself and about fifty of his men, had been
destroyed or taken. But of this hitherto no official confirma-
tion.
From the style and tone of Sir G. Prevost's dispatches I
suspect he has very much exaggerated the forces of Generals
Wilkinson, Hampton, and Harrison opposed against him.
If he has not, they ought before this to have given a very
good account of him and his province. But experience has
taught me to distrust our land operations, and I wait with
an anxiety predominating over my hopes the further ac-
counts that must soon be received concerning them.
One of the advantages which we may derive from this
war (and from so great an evil we ought to extract all the
good we possibly can) is that of acquiring military skill,
discipline, and experience. No nation can enjoy freedom
and independence without being always prepared to defend
them by force of arms. Our military incapacity when this
8 THE WRITINGS OF I1814
war commenced was so great that a few more years of peace
would have extinguished every spark of martial ardor
among us. All our first attempts upon Canada were but
sources of humiliation to us.1 The performances of the year
just now elapsed so far as we know them have certainly been
less disgraceful and in some particulars have been highly
honorable, there is yet much room and much occasion for
improvement. God grant that it may not be lost.
If I fill the pages of my letters to you with American news
it will indicate to you the subject nearest to my heart.
The great scenes of action in Europe are now so remote
from this country that the knowledge of them will reach the
United States nearly as soon as we receive it here. After
all the bloody tragedies which have been acting on the face
of Europe these two and twenty years, France is to receive
the law and constitution from the most inveterate of her
enemies. She abused her power of prosperity to such excess
that she has not a friend left to support her in the reverse
of her fortune. What the present coalition will do with her
1 "I was really in hopes, and I do not yet despair of the object, that this war
would be the means of obtaining by conquest or cession the provinces of Canada.
Not that I am ambitious for the extension of territory, but of security. I believe
a permanent peace cannot be maintained with the northern savages so long as a
European power holds the possession and government of those provinces. That
was the opinion of Britain when we were colonists, and that was also then the
opinion of our ancestors. If we obtain the Canadas, they will afford a pledge on
the part of the British government to preserve peace with us, by subjecting their
West India islands to a greater degree of dependence on the United States for
breadstuffs and lumber than if they held those provinces. The annual exports of
Canada for several years in the single article of wheat averaged half a million of
bushels, a portion of which no doubt was raised in the United States. Whilst
Britain holds the Canadas, it will be difficult for the United States at any time,
however necessary, to enforce an embargo or non-importation law. I had therefore
rather purchase the Canadas of Britain than not have them. We want them and
sooner or later they must and will be annexed to us." William Plumcr to John
Quincy Adams, January 24, 1814. Ms.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 9
is yet very uncertain, but there is no question in my mind
that they will do with her what they please.
TO THOMAS BOYLSTON ADAMS
St. Petersburg, 24 January, 1814.
• ••••• •
You will know long before this letter can reach you that
the Prince of Orange has returned to Holland, where instead
of resuming the title of Stadtholder, he has taken that of
" Sovereign Prince of the United Netherlands." The old
constitution of States General, States of the Provinces, and
Sovereign Cities, has therefore been totally abandoned.
The Prince in one of his proclamations says they shall have
a constitution, and a previous proclamation by a sort of
Revolutionary Committee of his friends, says that it is to
be prescribed by him. The English government have sent
troops there to support him, and according to common
report his son, the Hereditary Prince of Orange, who has
distinguished himself in Portugal and Spain under Lord
Wellington, is to be the husband of the future Queen of
England.
I am informed that one of the first acts of the government
formed under the Prince's authority was an informal notifi-
cation to Mr. Bourne that his functions as Consul General
of the United States had ceased. The same notification was
given to Mr. Forbes at Hamburg when that city was in-
corporated as a part of the French Empire, and it may be
principally a matter of form, or an expedient to obtain a
recognition of the new government. There is certainly
among the people of Holland no disposition unfriendly to
io THE WRITINGS OF [1814
America, and I can suppose none in the Prince. But what
his engagements with England may be time only can dis-
close. All the other allies of England have remained neutral
to her war with America. There may be motives, and among
them the strongest will be the clear, manifest and important
interest of Holland to remain neutral, for prompting the
British government to deny the Hollanders the benefit
of neutrality. By the measures with which the Prince
commences his career connected with the proposed marriage,
it may be the project in England to make Holland hereafter
an appendage to the British Empire in form as well as sub-
stance. Perhaps they will discover that Holland is an
alluvion of Hanover, a hint which they may take from their
friend the Ruler of France. To whatever disposition they
may adopt Holland must be, as she has been ever since the
first year of Batavian Liberty (with which you were so well
acquainted), altogether passive.
The events of the last two years opened a new prospect
to all Europe, and have discovered the glassy substance of
the colossal power of France. Had that power been acquired
by wisdom, it might have been consolidated by time and
the most ordinary portion of prudence. The Emperor Na-
poleon says that he was never seduced by prosperity; but
when he comes to be judged impartially by posterity that
will not be their sentence. His fortune will be among the
wonders of the age in which he has lived. His military talent
and genius will place him high in the rank of great captains;
but his intemperate passion, his presumptuous insolence,
and his Spanish and Russian wars, will reduce him very
nearly to the level of ordinary men. At all events he will
be one of the standing examples of human vicissitude,
ranged not among the Alexanders, Caesars, and Charle-
magnes, but among the Hannibals, Pompeys, and Charles
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS n
the 1 2th. I believe his romance is drawing towards its
close and that he will soon cease even to yield a pretext
for the war against France. England alone will be "afraid
of the gunpowder Percy though he should be dead."
By the return of Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard you will
have ascertained, what I suppose you have already sufficient
reason to expect, that we are to have no peace with England
by the means of a mediation.1 These gentlemen intend to
touch in England upon their return home. If there is any
prospect of obtaining peace by a direct negotiation they will
have the opportunity of promoting it; but the successes of
the British in their other wars have not been calculated to
prepare them for the termination of that with America. . . .
TO ROBERT FULTON
St. Petersburg, 29 January, 18 14.
Sir:
I have now the pleasure of inclosing to you a translation
of a rescript from the Emperor, addressed to the Minister
of the Interior, directing him to issue the patent for your
steam boats. It was sent me by Count Romanzoff, with a
request that I would give him notice for the information of
the Minister of the Interior, of the person empowered by
you to carry the design into execution here. I answered the
Count that I was authorized by your letter of 19 June, 1813,
to take out the patent in your behalf, and was ready upon
the delivery of it to me to pay on your account the 1500
rubles required conformably to the rescript; that I could not
1 See Gallatin's letter to Count Romanzoff, 13/25 January-, 1814, in Adams,
Writings of Gallatin, I. 598. He and Bayard left St. Petersburg January 25, and
reached Amsterdam March 4.
12 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
name the person who would be charged with the execution
of the plan here by you, as your letter had only mentioned
your intention of sending your chief engineer here for the
purpose; that if the Minister of the Interior thought a more
formal power than that in your letter to me indispensable
for the delivery of the patent, he might keep it in his hands
until I could inform you of its being ready for delivery to
you or your agent duly authorized. I afterwards saw the
Minister of the Interior himself, who told me that he should
not hesitate to deliver the patent to me upon the authority
given by your letter to me to receive it, but that the patent
itself could not be completed without a specification and a
model of your boat. Of course it will remain with him until
you can furnish these, and I acquiesced the more readily in
this arrangement as it occasions no loss of time to you. In
sending here your engineer for the construction of the first
boat you will be enabled at the same time to transmit the
model and specification, as well as the regular power to take
out the patent in your name. I am etc.
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 128. [James Monroe]
St. Petersburg, 5 February, 1814.
Sir:
In a separate letter I have informed you of the interview
which I had on the 1st instant with the Chancellor, Count
Romanzoff, at his request, of the dispatch from Count
Lieven J which he showed me, of the note which I wrote him
1 No. 260, November 26/December 5, 1813. See Adams, Memoirs, February 1,
1814.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 13
the next morning, asking for a copy of that dispatch or a
particular statement of its contents, and of his answer to
my note which as you will observe complies with neither of
my requests, but refers me to you for the purport of Lord
Castlereagh's letter to you, of which I had not said a word
in my note to him. I think a more particular account of this
interview due to the President for his information; but must
request that it may not be made public for several considera-
tions, and chiefly for the consequences which its publicity
might draw personally upon the Chancellor in a country
where there is no shelter for the subject from the displeasure
of his sovereign.
The Count had requested me to call upon him at nine
o'clock in the evening and at his own private house, to
which he had removed at the close of the year from the
hotel belonging to the Emperor, and assigned by him for
the residence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He apolo-
gized to me for having sent to me to come to him at undue
hours, and observed to me that as he was on the point of
abdicating, he had thought it best to continue to the last in
his habits of frankness and confidence with me, and that he
could do no better than to show me the dispatch itself which
he had received the day before from Count Lieven, which
was brought with a multitude of other packets by a courier
from the Emperor's headquarters, but without a line upon
the subject either from the Emperor or from Count Nessel-
rode.
The dispatch contained a very distinct allusion to the re-
fusal by Great Britain of the Emperor's mediation. From
the long silence of the Emperor, and from the caution with
which the Count had avoided any written communication
of this fact to us, I suspected that he would neither give me
a copy of the dispatch, nor a statement of its contents in
i4 THE WRITINGS OF [1S14
writing. I therefore purposely forbore asking him verbally
for the copy, because it was only by asking it in writing that
I could have a written answer, which would better ascer-
tain whether the withholding of this communication by the
Russian government was the effect merely of neglect or
of design.1
It was apparent from the tenor of the Count's conversa-
tion that a mere dismission from the Emperor's service was
not his principal apprehension. He had had recent and re-
peated assurances of the regard and affection of the Emperor
in his own hand, and which I have seen; but they have not
altogether tranquillized his mind. He told me that in send-
ing to the Emperor the treaty of peace with Persia, he had
taken that opportunity to renew the request which he had
already previously made that he might be permitted to re-
sign his office. That the Emperor in answering his letter
had expressed himself highly satisfied with the Persian
peace, and fully sensible of the importance of that trans-
action, and had concluded by saying that there was at the
close of the Count's letter an idea to which he, the Emperor,
could not reconcile himself.
Upon which, said the Count, I have replied and insisted upon
resigning. I have recalled to the Emperor's recollection that
when after the peace of Tilsit, with which I had nothing to do, he
laid his commands upon me to take the Department of Foreign
Affairs, I urged him to excuse me from a situation which I felt
to be above my powers. That he persisted in his commands, and
told me that he had already two wars upon his hands, with Turkey
and with Persia, and had just contracted the engagement of
commencing two others, with Sweden and with England. I have
observed that these four wars, being now all terminated, had
1 For Lord Walpole's statement, see Adams, Memoirs, April 2, 1814; and that of
Romanzoff, in lb., April 23.
,8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 15
brought my administration to a natural conclusion, and that the
peace with Persia, being the last transaction relating to them,
furnished him with a suitable occasion to dismiss me with kindness.
That I have in fact nothing to do. The Emperor when he left this
place chose to correspond with me, directly and exclusively. But
he has contracted new engagements. He not only commands his
own armies, but he oversees and superintends the interests of the
allies. All his time is absorbed; insensibly he has dropped the
habit of writing to me altogether, and I can get no answers from
headquarters upon business of any kind. The emperor is always
intending to write me tomorrow, or the next day, and here the
term fixed for exchanging the ratifications of the peace with
Persia is past, and I have not received them. Multitudes of letters
come from headquarters saying that on this, that and the other
affair the orders will be sent me in two or three days, and the orders
never come. In the meantime I am chained down here. I cannot
sleep out of St. Petersburg. I cannot give my time to my private
concerns; I cannot visit my estates, as I earnestly desire to do.
To be Chancellor of the Empire for the sake of signing passports
and giving answers about law suits is not worth while. I have
therefore left the hotel of the foreign department and removed
to my own house, expecting hourly the Emperor's answer to my
last request, which might indeed have been already here, but not
more than four or five days ago, and prepared as a kinswoman of
mine,1 turned of eighty, told me once she was determined to do
after two years more, to turn over a new leaf in my life. I am not
so old as she was, but I am more infirm in health, and at sixty shall
without waiting two years more turn over my new leaf. I can say
that my heart is American, and were it not for my age and infirm-
ities, I would now certainly go to that country; but as it is, I
wish only to retire to bless the Emperor for his past favors and
to wish him all future happiness and prosperity.
It was not the first time that the Count had suggested
1 It was his grandmother.
16 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
that the idea of going himself to America was floating in his
mind. He had mentioned it before, both to Mr. Gallatin
and Mr. Bayard, and, considered in connection with his
remark that he had solicited of the Emperor to dismiss him
with kindness, I have imagined that among his anticipa-
tions in his present situation he may expect that his dis-
mission may be accompanied with a permission to travel, in
which case there is not a spot in all Europe where he could
set his foot, with a hope of finding a friendly reception or a
comfortable residence. The Count is a sincere and genuine
Russian patriot. Of the statesmen with whom it has been
my fortune to have political relations, I never knew one
who carried into public life more of the principles and senti-
ments of spotless private honor. His integrity is irreproach-
able; but his enemies are numerous and inveterate in pro-
portion to the importance and elevation of the station he
has held. A powerful and implacable English influence,
political and commercial, has been incessantly working
against him, exasperated by the well-founded opinion that
he has been a steady and able adversary to the British mari-
time tyranny, and that he has been the principal instru-
ment in rescuing his country from the commercial servitude
to which the English had reduced the Russians in their own
cities. Among his own countrymen the very sunshine of
imperial favor, the very radiance of his own integrity, has
been brewing the tempest that now blackens over his head.
The connections of this country with France, although
completely formed before he came into office, are all as-
scribed to him; the compliances which were so long con-
tinued to avert the war are imputed solely to his counsels,
and the unfortunate issue of those connections and com-
pliances in the unjust and frantic war which France finally
waged against this country, have accumulated upon him a
l8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 17
degree of popular odium, like that which from precisely
similar sources burst upon the head of John De Witt in
Holland in 1672. From popular excesses the Count here has
nothing to fear. But he may know that about the person
of the Emperor efforts will not be wanting to deprive him
of more than his place. The advice to journey into a foreign
country may be a middle term upon which the Emperor's
will may settle, between a dismission with kindness and an
act of rigor more uncongenial to his personal character, but
to which he may be urged. All Europe is either in alliance
or at war with the Emperor. Into the countries of his
enemies the Count could not go; in those of his allies the
Count would find enmities and resentments against him as
bitter as those he would leave behind him at home. It is
only in America that he could hope to find an asylum from
the persecutions which will be the reward of his virtues and
of his services to his country.
In my letter to you, No. 118 of 8 September last, I men-
tioned to you the French, Russian and German translations
which I had procured to be made of the President's message
and the report of the Committee of Foreign Relations,
containing our manifesto on the declaration of war against
Great Britain, upon the Count's promise that they should be
published here in the same gazettes which had published
the English Regent's manifesto of 9 January, 181 3, and
that I had consented to the postponement of the publica-
tion at the Count's request on the arrival of Messrs. Gallatin
and Bayard here, and upon conciliatory principles. At this
interview I reminded the Count of his promise and claimed
its fulfilment. He said that he thought that upon this new
proposal from Lord Castlereagh for a direct negotiation the
same motive for avoiding any publication of an irritating
nature still continued. I answered that I had originally
18 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
asked and he had promised this publication only as the coun-
terpart to that of the English manifesto in the same papers.
He said that if I absolutely insisted upon it, they should be
published; but that he knew it would be imputed entirely
to him. I replied that placing it upon the footing of a per-
sonal favor to him, I would press the subject no farther; but
that I hoped I should see no further publication of English
statements injurious to my country in the Russian gazettes.
He said he would accept my forbearance on the ground
upon which I placed it, of a personal favor to him, and the
more readily, because Lord Walpole had already reproached
him for a publication in the gazettes relative to the American
mission, and that there should be, so far as depended upon
him, no publication on the subject of our war which could be
offensive to us. In the Count's situation I could ask no
more of him. I have no doubt that the publication now of
those papers would aggravate the peril of his condition,
and it would probably be of no service to our cause.1 I am
etc.
TO JOHN ADAMS
St. Petersburg, 17 February, 1814.
My Dear Sir:
There are still here a small number of Americans who
came to this country upon commercial pursuits and who after
bringing their affairs to a conclusion successively take their
departure to return home, and thereby afford us opportuni-
ties of writing to our friends. One of them is Mr. Hurd 2
1 Cf. Adams, Memoirs, February i, 1814. On the 23d Adams received the cir-
cular letter from Count Romanzoff announcing his temporary inability to conduct
the duties of the Department of Foreign Affairs.
2 John R. Hurd.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 19
of Boston, who goes to Gothenburg there to embark directly
for the United States, and by whom I propose to send this
letter.
I wrote to you by Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard, who left
this city the 25th of last month, and to my dear mother by
Mr. Harris, who followed them on the 9th instant. As they
intended to travel not very rapidly Mr. Harris expected to
overtake them by the time they reach Berlin. Their object
is to go to Amsterdam and thence to England, where they
expect to receive a new commission and powers to treat of
peace with the British government directly. Since their de-
parture I have additional reason for expecting that such new
powers will be transmitted to them, knowing that Lord
Castlereagh has written to the American Secretary of State
making the formal proposition of such a negotiation.1
Whether I shall be associated in this new commission or not
is to me extremely doubtful. I have a multitude of very
substantial reasons for wishing I may not be, and only one
for an inclination to the contrary. My negative reasons are
not of a nature to be committed to paper. My positive
reason is, because the voyage to England would be just so
much performed of my voyage to the United States, and be-
cause it would make my return home as certain, as direct
and as early as I could desire. From your letters which were
brought me by Mr. Gallatin I perceived you had been in-
formed of a subsequent destination which was intended for
me had the mediation terminated in a peace. As however
it has scarcely resulted even in a negotiation, other circum-
1 "Since I wrote you by Mr. Harris, Lord Walpole has told me that Lord Castle-
reagh's letter to Mr. Monroe, he believed, was written in consequence of what he
had communicated to Castlereagh, after his arrival here. If so, it must have been,
according to the information in Count Lieven's dispatch, about the beginning of
December, and not in October, as was supposed in London." To Albert Gallatin,
February 18, 1814. Ms.
20
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
stances will naturally lead to other views. That in the pres-
ent situation of Europe, or rather in that which must in-
fallibly and very shortly be the situation of Europe, a peace
between the United States and Great Britain may be con-
cluded, I have little doubt. A general peace, at least some-
thing which will pass under that name, is highly probable
in the course of a few months. According to all present
appearances the catastrophe of the French Revolution is at
hand. The Bourbons will at last be restored, not as the
Stuarts were in England by the spontaneous and irresistible
voice of the nation, but by the dictates of a foreign coalition.
But the allied powers in conferring this blessing upon France
will claim the reward of their generosity, and be specially
careful to reduce her within dimensions which will carry
with them what they may consider as a guaranty of future
tranquillity, and in their solicitude to effect this as well as
in the distribution of the spoils of conquest the seeds of
further wars will in every probability be thickly disseminated.
That a peace, however, of some kind will very soon take
place is not to be doubted, from the total inability now
manifested by France to resist the invasion of the allied
armies. The allies proclaim to the world that they are wag-
ing war not against France but against Napoleon Bonaparte,
and the French people are as willing to believe them as the
other nations of Europe were to believe the Jacobins when
they promised liberty, equality and fraternity to every
people, and declared war against individual kings and princes.
The throne of Napoleon was built upon his fields of battle.
Its only solid basis was victory. So long as he was victorious
the French nation was submissive, but with his fortune all
his ties upon them have dissolved. If it were possible for
any conqueror to possess a hold upon the affections of man-
kind, it would be an exception to a general rule, and of all
i8i4) JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 21
conquerors he is the last who would be entitled to it. In
the real moment of distress it was not to be expected that
the French people would make any effort or sacrifice for his
sake. That they will make none is perfectly ascertained,
and the wisdom of a woman may perhaps not be necessary
to persuade them to deal with him as the Israelites of Abel
dealt with Sheba the son of Bichri, and to propitiate their
invaders by throwing over to them his head. At the disso-
lution of his government France will be in the hands of the
allies, and their intention is undoubtedly to restore the
Bourbons, who must of course subscribe to any terms which
may be required of them. Peace therefore cannot be remote,
and a peace in Europe will leave the war between us and
England without any object but an abstract principle to
contend for. Neither of the parties will be disposed to con-
tinue the war upon such a point, and the predisposition to
peace which will really influence both I hope and believe
will make the peace not very difficult to be accomplished.
The object for which the war was declared was removed at
the very time when the declaration was made. I do not
believe it possible now to make a peace which shall settle
the point upon which the war has been continued. It seems
to me, and I indulge the idea with pleasure, that the new and
unexpected prospect opening to Europe will take away great
part of the interest which Great Britain has in the question.
She will neither have the need of such a navy, nor the means
of maintaining it, as will constantly supply the temptation
to recruit for it by such an odious practice as that of impress-
ment upon the seamen of a foreign power. But I see no
probability that she will yield the principle, and as to the
modifications to render it palatable to us, if the government
of the United States are of my opinion, they will not suffer
their negotiators to listen for a moment to any modification
22 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
whatsoever; because any modification, be it what it will,
must involve a concession of the principle on our part. I
would sooner look forward to the chance of ten successive
wars, to be carried on ten times more weakly than we have
the present one, than concede one particle of our principle
by a treaty stipulation. The only way of coming to terms
of peace with England therefore at this time, which I sup-
pose practicable and in any degree admissible, is to leave
the question just where it was, saying nothing about it.
But I know such a peace would not satisfy the people of
America, and I have no desire to be instrumental in con-
cluding it. If our land warriors had displayed a career of
glory, equal to that of our naval heroes, we should be war-
ranted in demanding more even after all the changes that
have happened in Europe. If we can obtain more by con-
tinuing the war, we are in duty bound to continue it. At
this distance, and with the communications interrupted as
they are, I am incompetent to decide this question. It must
be settled at home, and may the spirit of wisdom inspire
the determination! . . .
TO ABIGAIL ADAMS
St. Petersburg, 30 March, 1814.
Since I wrote you last, 1 February, I have had no oppor-
tunity of putting a letter even on its way to reach you when
it should please heaven. The ordinary intercourse between
this country and England by the way of Gothenburg has
been suspended from the 24th of December until this day
by the freezing of the harbors, and there are now 22 mails
due from London. The same cause has prevented travellers
from hence going in that direction, and I now write you
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 23
without any immediate prospect of a conveyance for my
letter, but in adherence to the rule of suffering no month
to pass without renewing at least the token of my affection
and duty.
Your letter of 14 July, 1813, is still the last date that I
have received from Quincy or from any part of the United
States, but by the means of newspapers we have some very
recent accounts from America. By private letters too from
England which have found their way through Holland, and
by others from Holland, we have learnt the acceptance by
the President of the United States of the proposal made by
the British government to treat for peace at Gothenburg,
and the appointment of four American commissioners for
the negotiation. I am informed that a Mr. Strong ! has
arrived in England, charged with dispatches for the two of
the commissioners now in Europe, and that he was proceed-
ing as speedily as possible to Gothenburg, for which place
he has the appointment of consul. But I have not heard
from Mr. Strong himself, and Gothenburg will probably be
still for a week to come inaccessible on the waterside. Mr.
Bayard I trust will receive the dispatches in Holland and
from thence may communicate them to me.
I feel an inclination almost irresistible to give my father
the whole budget of my feelings and opinions upon this new
effort to reconcile two countries which seem incapable of
living either at peace or at war with each other. But mind-
ful of an admonition in one of his last letters, I must re-
serve my thoughts until they can be imparted without
restraint, in the freedom of direct conversation. I may
simply add that I expect to have this pleasure before the
close of the year. Whatever may be the issue of the in-
tended conferences at Gothenburg, I hope and believe they
1 Nathaniel W. Strong.
24 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
will not spin out beyond the bounds of the ensuing summer;
and at all events I conclude it is not the President's inten-
tion that I should return to this place. If left to my own
option I certainly shall not. After five winters passed at
St. Petersburg, I have no wish to try in my own person, or
to expose my family to the experience of this climate any
longer. There is not at present nor is there likely to be in
future any object of public concernment which could oc-
cupy me here in a manner satisfactory to myself or useful
to my country. Many other considerations will combine
to draw me home, and if the negotiation at Gothenburg
terminates as I have every reason to believe it will, I flatter
myself that it will be the means of restoring us to our friends
and country before the next New Year's day.
We are given to understand that Mr. Gallatin is not in-
cluded in the new commission, which to me is a subject of
regret. Before his arrival here my personal acquaintance
with him was so slight that I could scarcely say I knew him
otherwise than as a public man. From the relations in which
we were placed together here, his character, and especially
his talents, gained ground upon my opinion. His desire to
accomplish the peace was sincere and ardent. I had several
opportunities of observing his quickness of understanding,
his sagacity and penetration, and the soundness of his judg-
ment.1 I should have relied very much upon him had the
negotiation taken any serious effect, and shall be sorry not
to have the benefit of his assistance in that of which the
1 "I will ever retain a grateful sense of yours and Mrs. Adams's civilities and
kindness at St. Petersburg; but I fear that bad health and worse spirits made me
still more dull than usual and prevented my showing what I felt on the occasion.
Permit me to add that I am happy to have made your acquaintance and to have
learned how to appreciate your merit. Present me affectionately to Mrs. Adams and
also to Mr. and Mrs. Smith; and accept the assurance of my sincere respect and
consideration." Albert Gallatin to John Quincy Adams, March 6, 1814. Ms.
i8i41 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 25
prospect is before us. Of the two new colleagues said to be
joined with us at present I know Mr. Clay by having served
with him one session in the Senate, and Mr. Russell ! by a
frequent and very agreeable correspondence with him while
he was charge d'affaires in France and in England. With
what feelings, dispositions or instructions those gentlemen
will come, I can only infer from their sentiments as they
have been heretofore made public and from conjecture. Of
the three former commissioners I should probably have
been the first to stop in the career of concession to secure
the main object of the mission. The newcomers, if they have
had no change in their opinions since I had last an oppor-
tunity of knowing them, will be of sterner stuff than myself.2
1 Jonathan Russell (1771-1832).
2 "Mr. Clay, the late speaker of the House and Mr. Russell will be the bearers of
this letter. They will carry to you all the intelligence respecting the affairs of our
nation which may be necessary for you to know, and that with more accuracy than
I can relate them. The appointment of Mr. Clay in lieu of Mr. Gallatin is not a
more popular measure with a certain set in this quarter than that of Mr. Gallatin;
and the inviting of Mr. Russell in the commission is said by the croakers [to be] de-
signed to defeat the whole negotiation, which I have not a doubt many wish for."
Abigail Adams to John Quincy Adams, February 5, 1814. Ms. "The last appoint-
ment of Mr. Clay and Russell gave much discontent to the federal party here, who
were sure it was done to defeat the negotiation, and in great urbanity towards you,
declared that the interests of the United States would be much safer in the single
hands of Mr. Adams than in all the rest of the ministers. I know the party well,
and with all their professions, they would make no scruple to sacrifice Mr. Adams,
as you have before experienced, and as your father before you has done, if any
measure you should agree to come in opposition to their views of interest or ambi-
tion. I forgive them. They have been amply rewarded for their blindness, their
ingratitude, and grasping ambition, and their unbounded thirst for gain. Their
humiliation has been manifest to the world by the loss of their consequence and
weight in the Union. Long, long will it be, if ever they recover again their former
consequence. And to this cause may be ascribed their wish to separate and dis-
solve the Union. I speak not of all those who style themselves federalists, but of
those designated by the Junto." lb., May I, 1814. Ms. In the Life and Corre-
spondence of Rufus King, V. 321, Armstrong is given as authority for the statement
that Daschkoff, Gallatin and Girard were intriguing to have Gallatin appointed
26 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
From the continual claim of unexpected and unexampled
success which has been attending the British cause both in
arms and in negotiation from the hour that their war with
us commenced, we have anything to anticipate but a spirit
of concession in them. They have little to boast of in the
progress of their war with us hitherto, but the chances of
war have all turned up prizes to them everywhere else.
France, after having been twenty years the dictatress of
Europe, has now in the course of two campaigns been brought
completely at the feet of those enemies whom she had so
often vanquished and so long oppressed. Six weeks ago an
allied army of at least three hundred thousand men was
within two days easy march of Paris, and by the latest ac-
counts received from thence was again within the same dis-
tance, or nearer. In the interval they had met with some
opposition which occasioned a momentary check upon their
operations and a short retreat to concentrate their forces.
There is little reason to doubt that they are at this moment
in possession of Paris, and that the Empire of Napoleon is
in the Paradise of Fools. While the allies were in the heart
of France, a negotiation as hypocritical and as fallacious as
the Congress of Prague, was affected to be opened at Chatil-
lon, without any intention perhaps on any side, certainly
not the side of the allies, that it should result in a peace.1
Their object is in giving peace to France to make her at the
same time a present of the Bourbons; but even in the ex-
tremity to which France is reduced there have been very
few and trifling manifestations of a disposition in any part
of her people to receive them.
to Russia; Russell for Sweden might give one vote in the Senate against Gallatin;
and Clay had been named as third commissioner, but was displaced for Gallatin.
On the influences at work for Russell's appointment, see lb., 328-330.
1 A conference of the allied sovereigns opened at Chatillon-sur-Seine, February 5.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 27
As I am in daily expectation of receiving the order to re-
pair to Gothenburg, I may possibly be there as soon as this
letter, or be obliged to take it on there with me. It is now
of the whole year the worst time for undertaking the journey,
and the passage of the Gulf between this and Sweden will
probably for some weeks be impracticable. It is however
very doubtful whether I shall be able to go before the break-
ing up of the ice, in which case I shall endeavor to get a
passage directly by water. But the navigation from hence
is very seldom open before the first of June. . . .
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 131. [James Monroe]
St. Petersburg, 7 April, 1814.
Sir:
On the 31st ultimo Mr. Strong arrived in this city and
brought me your favor (triplicate) of 8 January last, and a
letter from Mr. Bayard at Amsterdam, enclosing a copy of
your joint dispatch of the same 8 January, sent to him and
me; and the printed message of the President of 6 January,
and documents relating to the proposal of a negotiation for
peace at Gothenburg. Mr. Strong informs me that he was
also charged with several packets of documents and news-
papers from the Department of State which by unavoidable
accident were left on board the packet in which he crossed
from England to Holland.
I received at the same time and from Mr. Strong a letter
from Mr. Beasley dated 1 March, in which there is the
following paragraph:
It has been rumored for some days past, but I have not been
able to trace it to any satisfactory source, that this government
28 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
has come to the determination not to enter upon any negotiation
until our government shall have restored to the ordinary state of
prisoners of war, all the British officers held in the United States
as hostages to answer in their persons for the safety and proper
treatment of those prisoners who have been sent to this country
for trial. I hope it may not be so, but I should not be surprised
at the adoption of any measure calculated to prolong the war with
us, especially if there should be an immediate peace on the con-
tinent of which there is a fair prospect at present.
A report of the same kind, that the British government
had determined not to enter upon this negotiation, had been
generally circulated here among the English merchants, and
derived some countenance from the fact that so late as the
first of March no appointment of British commissioners was
known to have been made, although they had been nearly
a month before apprized that the President had accepted
the Prince Regent's proposal for the negotiation. Under
these circumstances it might be questionable whether it was
not my duty to delay the execution of the instructions to re-
pair to Gothenburg, until something more certain of the
intentions of the British Government should be known.
But in considering that the instructions themselves are
peremptory, that the wanton violation of good faith in the
refusal to carry into effect their own proposal was not to be
credited upon mere rumors and surmises, and that if such,
could be the intention of the British government I might
furnish them with a pretext for it by not repairing to the
appointed place, I concluded to proceed upon the journey as
speedily as possible and by the road most likely to be the
shortest at this season of the year. I hope to leave this city
in the course of a fortnight, and to be at Gothenburg by the
10th of May.
You will have learnt probably ere this that Mr. Harris
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 29
left this place shortly after Messrs. Gallatin and Bayard,
and with the intention of accompanying them in their con-
templated visit to England.1 As Mr. Strong informs me
that he had no written dispatch for Mr. Harris, I know not
whether he has yet been informed that the charge of our
affairs here in my absence is to be committed to him. If
he has, his arrival here may be hourly expected. I have
already written to him under cover to Mr. Bourne to inform
him of this arrangement, and urging the expediency of his
return hither. He had left a power to transact the ordinary
official business of the consulate with Mr. Thomas VV. Nor-
man, a citizen of the United States.2 But Mr. Norman
himself is on the point of departing from this country and,
having no power of substitution in his authority from Mr.
Harris, both the legation and the consulate will be vacant
until that gentleman's return. I am etc.
TO SENATOR WEYDEMEYER 3
The undersigned, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary of the United States of America, deeply
regretting the indisposition of His Excellency Mr. Weyde-
1"I scarcely know what authority to give to Mr. B[ayard] and G[allatin]'s
opinions concerning Peace. Without communication with those who only could
impart correct information concerning the views of the English government, they
could form no better opinion in England than in Russia. Neither of those gentle-
men, in the present situation of the two countries, had any business in England.
Had they felt upon this point as they ought, they would not have appeared in
England, where they are liable on mere suspicion to be confined, or to be sent with
ignominy out of the country." Rufus King to Christopher Gore, July u, 1814.
Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, V. 396.
2 See Adams, Memoirs, February 1, 18 14.
1 Senator, member of the Council of His Imperial Majesty and of the College of
Foreign Affairs.
3°
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
meyer, which deprives him of the honor of conferring with
him for the present as he had requested, has now that of
addressing to him this official note, to inform him of the
orders which he has just received from his government.
His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent of England, having
accompanied his refusal of the mediation offered by His
Imperial Majesty for terminating the war between the
United States and England with a proposal, transmitted to
the government of the United States by His Britannic
Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to open a
negotiation either at Gothenburg in Sweden or at London,
to treat directly of peace, the President of the United States
has accepted this proposal, and has fixed upon Gothenburg
as the place where the conferences are to be held.
The President could not see without strong regret the ob-
stacle to the commencement of a negotiation for peace inter-
posed by the resolutions of the English government, to
reject the mediation of a sovereign whose uprightness and
impartiality were known to the whole world, and whose offer
of mediation had been inspired by the sentiments of the
sincerest friendship for both the belligerent parties, of the
humanity which so eminently distinguishes the character of
His Imperial Majesty, and of attention to the interests of
his people which were suffering by this war, and could not
but derive advantage from the restoration of peace.
This refusal, having nevertheless taken place, the President
of the United States, always animated with the sincere
desire so constantly manifested of terminating this war
upon conditions of reciprocity consistent with the rights
of both parties as sovereign and independent nations, has
thought proper to accept the proposal for a direct negotiation.
In determining upon this measure it would have been the
more satisfactory to the President, if by the communications
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 31
from the Envoys Extraordinary of the United States then
at the court of His Imperial Majesty, he could have known
with certainty that it would be agreeable to the Emperor.
But to avoid all delay, and from the known character of the
Emperor and the benevolent views with which his mediation
had been offered, in no wise doubting that His Majesty
would see with satisfaction the concurrence of the United
States in an alternative which under existing circumstances
afforded the best prospect of obtaining the object for which
the Emperor's good offices had been offered, he acceded to
the Prince Regent's proposition, and immediately took the
measures on the part of the United States for carrying it into
effect.
The undersigned feels himself bound on this occasion to
observe that the proposal for this direct negotiation was
made by a note from His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador,
addressed to His Excellency Count Nesselrode at His Im-
perial Majesty's headquarters at Toplitz, dated the 1st of
September of the last year,1 and that in transmitting to the
United States a copy of this note my Lord Castlereagh,
His Britannic Majesty's Secretary for Foreign Affairs, de-
clares that the Ambassador, Lord Cathcart, had acquainted
him "that the American Commissioners at St. Petersburg
had intimated in reply to that overture, that they had no
objection to a negotiation at London, and were equally de-
sirous as the British government had declared itself to be,
that this business should not be mixed with the affairs of the
continent of Europe, but that their powers were limited to
negotiate under the mediation of Russia." 2
1 Cat heart to Nesselrode, September i, 1813. American State Papers, Foreign
Relations, III. 622.
* Castlereagh to the Secretary of State, November 4, 18 1 3. American State Papers,
Foreign Relations, III. 621. "What does Lord Cathcart mean in saying that the
32 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
The undersigned remaining alone of the envoys of the
United States then at the court of His Imperial Majesty
knows not whence the error of my lord Castlereagh upon this
subject can have proceeded; but he cannot abstain from de-
claring that the envoys of the United States never gave to
this overture the answer which he has attributed to them.
That they never could have given to it any answer whatso-
ever, inasmuch as it was never communicated to them, and
above all, that they never could have manifested the desire
that this business should not be mixed with the affairs of
the continent of Europe, because they had no knowledge of
this declaration of the British government that such was their
desire, and because there never had been an idea suggested,
either in His Imperial Majesty's offer of mediation, or in
its acceptance by the President of the United States, of
mixing this business with the affairs of the continent of
Europe. The undersigned, in his own name and in that of
his colleagues, requests that this formal disavowal of an
answer ascribed to them which they never gave, may be
made known to His Majesty the Emperor.
The President of the United States, having thought fit
to name the undersigned one of the envoys on the part of
the United States for the proposed negotiation, has directed
him to repair for that purpose as soon as possible to Gothen-
burg, and to leave during his absence from St. Petersburg
Mr. Levett Harris charged with the affairs of the United
States at His Imperial Majesty's court. Mr. Harris is at
this moment absent but his return may be daily expected.
The other envoys of the United States for this mission may
American plenipotentiaries in reply to an overture (which never was made to them)
expressed among other things their reluctance to have American affairs blended
with those of the continent? The subject was never to my knowledge even al-
luded to in conversation. Can you not obtain an explanation or a disavowal?"
Albert Gallatin to John Quincy Adams, March 6, 1814. Ms.
l8l4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 33
have arrived already at Gothenburg,1 and the undersigned
is obliged to hasten as much as possible his departure. He
will in a few days have the honor of asking of His Excellency
Mr. Weydemeyer the passports necessary for his journey,
and has now that of requesting him to solicit an audience for
him to take leave of Her Imperial Majesty the Empress
Mother. He also desires the honor of being presented to
Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Ann for the same
purpose.
In conclusion the undersigned has the honor to remark to
His Excellency Mr. Weydemeyer, that he has the express
orders of the President of the United States to make known
to the Emperor his sensibility to His Majesty's friendly dis-
position manifested by the offer of his mediation, his regret
at its rejection by the British government, and his desire
that in future the greatest confidence and cordiality, and
the best understanding may prevail between His Maj-
esty's government and that of the United States.
The undersigned requests his Excellency Mr. Weyde-
meyer to accept the assurance of his very distinguished
consideration.
St. Petersburg, March 26 / April 7, 18 14.
1 Clay and Russell arrived at Gothenburg April 12, after a passage of fifty-six
days.
34 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 132. [James Monroe]
St. Petersburg, 15 April, 18 14.
Sir:
Immediately after receiving your favors of 8 January by
Mr. Strong, I requested an interview with Mr. Weydemeyer,
now the official organ of communication with the foreign
ministers at this court, with the intention of making known
to him the instructions I received, and of testifying to him
my surprise at the statement in Lord Castlereagh's letter
to you of a supposed answer given by the American envoys
at St. Petersburg to the overture for a negotiation at London
or Gothenburg, made by Lord Cathcart's note of 1 Septem-
ber to Count Nesselrode at the Emperor's headquarters at
Toplitz.
Mr. Weydemeyer was so unwell that he could not see me
for several days, and on the 7th instant I addressed to him
an official note, of which, and of its translation, I have the
honor herewith to enclose copies. After the note was written,
and before it was sent, I received notice from Mr. Weyde-
meyer that he would see me the next day; but he still was so
much indisposed that our conference was very short, and
consisted on my part chiefly in a recapitulation of the
contents of the note, and on his, in the promise that he would
immediately dispatch it to the Emperor, and in general
assurances of the satisfaction with which His Majesty would
receive the testimonials of the friendly dispositions of the
American government.
The answer ascribed to the American envoys will doubtless
occasion no less surprise to you than it did to my colleagues
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 35
and myself, when you are informed that, until after the
departure of Messrs. Gallatin and Bayard from this place,
we neither had nor could obtain any official information that
any such overture as that of Lord Cathcart's note had ever
been made. It had been intimated to us through indirect
channels that such an offer would be communicated to us;
and as early as the month of August, Count Romanzoff had
put the question to me, whether we could treat in London, if
such a proposal should be made by the British government.
In the same informal manner that government had received
notice that we had no objection to treat either at London or
Gothenburg, but that our powers were limited to treat under
the mediation. We also very well knew the aversion which
the British Cabinet felt to the idea of having their disputes
with America at all connected with the affairs of the conti-
nent of Europe; but we had certainly never expressed our
opinion upon the subject, and in all our transactions with
Russia relative to the mediation, nothing about the affairs
of Europe had ever been said. Nor did we know that the
British government had ever declared their sentiments in
relation to that point.
It was apparently the object of the British Cabinet, in
rejecting the Russian mediation, to withhold, if possible,
from the public eye all evidence, not only of that rejection
and of the motives upon which it was founded, but even
that the offer had been made. In the first instance they
gave no positive answer, but expressed doubts whether the
mediation would be accepted in America. In their labors
to persuade others they had succeeded to convince them-
selves that the American government was under French
influence, and calculating that the mediation of a sovereign
at war with France and in close alliance with them could not
be acceptable to the President, they trusted that a refusal
36 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
on his part would release them from the necessity of coming
to a decision upon the proposal. It was therefore not made
at that time formally and in written communications, but
merely in personal conferences between the Chancellor and
Lord Cathcart here, and between Count Lieven and Lord
Castlereagh at London. When it was found not only that
the mediation was accepted by the President, but that the
envoys from the United States were appointed for the mis-
sion, a positive answer to Russia became absolutely neces-
sary, and Count Lieven was told that the question with
America involved principles of internal government in Great
Britain which were not susceptible of being discussed under
any mediation. Lord Cathcart was instructed to explain
the matter verbally at the Emperor's headquarters, and had
a conversation with the Emperor himself upon the subject
at Bautzen, between the 12th and 20th of May. Still there
was nothing written to prove the refusal of the mediation,
nor would there perhaps ever have been anything, but for
the renewed proposal which the Emperor by Count Ro-
manzofPs advice directed to be made by Count Lieven, the
official note of which was sent from hence to Count Lieven,
and a copy of which has been transmitted to you by us.
Before this note was received by Count Lieven, Lord Castle-
reagh had learnt that it would come, and then, that is about
the last of July, Lord Cathcart was instructed to decline
the mediation in a written note. This note he presented at
Toplitz on the 1st of September. So that when Count Lieven
received his instructions to renew the offer of mediation,
he was told by Lord Castlereagh that it had already been
refused, and all the grounds of refusal fully set forth to the
Emperor at headquarters. Count Lieven therefore did not
present the note according to his instructions, and whatever
Lord Cathcart's verbal elucidations of the motives of refusal
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 37
may have been to the Emperor, he has only referred to,
without stating them in the written note. That they were
not satisfactory to the Emperor I well know, for I have seen
a letter in His Majesty's own hand writing, dated at
Toplitz, 8 September O. S., that is twenty days after Lord
Cathcart's note, and in express terms approving completely
Count Romanzoff's instruction to Count Lieven for the
renewal of the offer of mediation.
In the policy of suppressing as much as possible, the evi-
dence of the refusal to accept the mediation, it cannot now
be questioned that the Russian government has either con-
curred with, or acquiesced in the views of the British. The
importance of preserving the reality of harmony between
them at the most eventful crisis of their great common
cause against France urged alike upon both parties the
necessity of preserving the appearances of it in regard to
all objects of minor concernment. The flat refusal of the
mediation of a prince whose partialities, if he could have
been susceptible of entertaining any while performing the
ofRce of mediator, must have been all in favor of England,
could not but have upon the public opinion of the world an
operation in no wise advantageous to the British govern-
ment. The Emperor on his part might not incline to expose
to the world how very little consideration the British had
for him beyond the precise points in which his cause was
their own. He might be advised that in making public such
a signal and groundless mark of distrust on the part of his
ally, the sentiment of his dignity would require that he
should take some notice of it, which at this time would not
be expedient. It might also be admitted that the very
proposal in Lord Cathcart's note was of a nature which
would have assumed a singular appearance, if communicated
by the Russian government to the American envoys. Lord
38 THE WRITINGS OF [1S14
Cathcart's language to Russia is "We will not negotiate
with America under your mediation, but we ask your good
office to prevail upon America to negotiate with us with-
out it." The delicacy of this procedure towards Russia was
I suppose duly reflected upon before Lord Cathcart pre-
sented his note; but I acknowledge that when I first read it
among the printed documents with the President's message
of 6 January, I was not surprised that the Russian govern-
ment should have declined performing the office of mediator
merely to announce that her mediation was refused.
However this may be, certain it is that the note never was
communicated to us. We never answered the overture con-
tained in it, because although we received indirect intima-
tions that it would be made, yet it never was actually made.
And we never said anything about mixing the affair with
those of the continent of Europe, because nothing was ever
said to us about it. To the opinion of my colleagues upon
this subject I cannot speak; but for myself, I do not consider
the questions at issue between the United States and Great
Britain as questions in which the continent of Europe has
no interest — not even the question of impressment. In
every naval war waged by Great Britain, it is the interest
and the right of her adversary that she should not be per-
mitted to recruit her navy by man-stealing under the name
of impressment from neutral merchant vessels. Nor should
I have felt at all inclined to indulge the pretension on the
part of Britain had it been disclosed to us in the shape of a
declaration that her contests with us were nothing to the
continent of Europe.
I thought it necessary, therefore, in my note to Mr. Weyde-
meyer pointedly to disavow the answer which Lord Castle-
reagh says he had been informed by Lord Cathcart that we
had given to the overture in his note of i September. It will
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 39
be for Lord Cathcart to explain whence he derived his in-
formation. I am etc.
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 133. [James Monroe]
St. Petersburg, 25 April, 1814.
Sir:
• ••••• •
I propose to leave this city in two or three days for Gothen-
burg. My intention is to go to Reval and there embark for
Stockholm. The passage by the way of Finland is now im-
practicable, and there are twenty-five English mails known
to be at Grislehamn waiting for the possibility of passing
the gulf. The harbor of Reval is itself not yet open, and by
information which I have obtained from thence will probably
not be so before this day week, by which time I hope to be
there. I have concluded upon this course as likely to be the
shortest to the place of my destination.
I have a letter from Mr. Harris dated 14 March at Amster-
dam. He did not then know that the charge of our affairs
here was to be left with him, and was expecting to go to
England with Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard. I wrote him
on the 4th instant under cover to Mr. Bourne, and have
since written again under cover to Mr. Beasley, informing
him of the President's order concerning him and urging his
return hither. It is not probable he can arrive before some
time in June.
In the uncertainty whether Mr. Clay or Mr. Russell might
arrive in Sweden before me, I thought it a proper mark of
respect to the Swedish government to give them notice of
4o
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
the commission to Gothenburg, and of my intention in pur-
suance of my instructions to proceed thither. I therefore
wrote to Count Engestrom, the Swedish Minister of Foreign
Affairs, with whom I have been long personally acquainted
and had already been in correspondence. As my letter went
by the mail, and the passage of the Gulf is impracticable,
it may perhaps not arrive sooner than myself; but the
Swedish commercial agent here will furnish me a pass-
port. . .
I have continued to make the payment and the charge for
a Secretary of Legation. I shall do the same for the present
quarter, and Mr. Smith with whom I shall leave the papers
and seal of the Legation will continue to perform the office
of secretary until Mr. Harris's return. He will then embark
for Gothenburg, and thence return to the United States.
From the time of my own departure from this place I shall
be without the assistance of any secretary, upon which I
beg leave to submit to your candor and the President's con-
sideration some remarks which I deem not unimportant to
the public interest.
For a commission of three or four members, upon a trust
so momentous as that of a negotiation for peace between the
United States and Great Britain, it is not only expedient,
but for the responsibility of each individual member of the
Commission indispensable, that he should have a copy of
every document relating to the negotiation. There must
therefore be not only as many letter books as there are com-
missioners, but copies must be made in them of many papers
received as well as of all those which are dispatched. The
mere manual labor is more than can be performed by one
secretary to the commission, and either he must employ
clerks for the work, or each commissioner must make the
copies for himself, or by the hand of a private secretary.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 41
In the case of the extraordinary mission here, both these
expedients were used. Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard had at
first private secretaries, and afterwards Mr. Harris em-
ployed a clerk. The result of this is that all the papers of the
most confidential nature come to the knowledge of all the
persons thus employed.
The salary of an American Minister in Europe will not
admit of the expense of supporting a private secretary, in
any manner confidential. The employment of a common
clerk at daily or monthly wages is not without strong in-
conveniences from the motives of a breach of trust to which
such persons would be accessible. There would be no diffi-
culty in obtaining all the assistance of this kind which could
be desired without any expense, and offers to this effect have
been made to me; but I know they were founded upon pro-
jects of commercial speculation in which use would be made
of the information thereby to be obtained, and I do not think
it ought to be so used. I shall therefore take no secretary
with me and shall do as much of the copying as I can myself.
But I may be compelled to employ a copying clerk at Gothen-
burg, and to take such a person for it as I may have the
fortune of finding there. I must also request, if I am to re-
turn here, that a secretary to this legation may be ap-
pointed. I am etc.1
1 "The war in Europe at present appears to be at an end. The Bourbons are
restored to France and Spain, and the dreams of an universal republic or an uni-
versal monarchy have ended in the conquest of France by the allies, and the ab-
dication of Napoleon Bonaparte, against whom the allies have of late professed to
make war. It seems to me hardly credible that the allies should very soon discover
that there are other objects of contention besides Napoleon, but hitherto all has
gone on smoothly since they are in possession of Paris. Napoleon has not only been
constitutionally deposed; but he has formally abdicated and renounced all pre-
tensions to the throne of France and Italy. The Bourbons are to receive France,
and France is to receive the Bourbons, as presents from the allies; and the allies
must necessarily dictate the terms upon which these generous donations are to be
42 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
TO ABIGAIL ADAMS
Reval, 12 May, 1814.
• ••••• •
The coalition of Europe against France has at length been
crowned with complete success. The annals of the world
do not, I believe, furnish an example of such a reverse of
fortune as that nation has experienced within the last two
years. The interposition of Providence to produce this
mighty change has been so signal, so peculiar, so distinct
from all human operation, that in ages less addicted to
superstition than the present it might have been considered
as miraculous. As a judgment of Heaven, it will undoubt-
edly be considered by all pious minds now and hereafter;
and I cannot but indulge the hope that it opens a prospect
of at least more tranquillity and security to the civilized
part of mankind than they have enjoyed the last half cen-
tury. France for the last twenty-five years has been the
scourge of Europe; in every change of her government she
has manifested the same ambitious, domineering, oppressive,
and rapacious spirit to all her neighbors. She has now
fallen a wretched and helpless victim into their hands, de-
throning the sovereign she had chosen, and taking back the
granted. That all parties should ultimately be satisfied with the issue may reason-
ably be doubted. The allies have not yet declared how much of the guaranty
which they thought necessary to secure them against the unbridled ambition of
Bonaparte, they will hold it prudent to relax in favor of the pacific and unaspiring
house of Bourbon. If the paroxysm of generosity holds out to the end, they will
soon find another coalition necessary. If, as is far more probable, they finish by
availing themselves of their advantages, to impose severe and humiliating terms
upon France, besides forfeiting the pledge they have given to the world of modera-
tion and magnanimity, they will leave a germ of rancor and revenge which cannot
be long in shooting up again. But for the present the war in Europe is terminated."
To John J dams, May 8, 1814. Ms.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 43
family she had expelled, at their command; and ready to be
dismembered and parcelled out as the resentment or the
generosity of her conquerors shall determine. The final re-
sult is now universally and in a great degree justly im-
putable to one man. Had Napoleon Bonaparte, with his
extraordinary genius and transcendent military talents,
possessed an ordinary portion of judgment or common
sense, France might have been for ages the preponderating
power in Europe, and he might have transmitted to his
posterity the most powerful empire upon earth, and a name
to stand by the side of Alexander, Caesar and Charlemagne,
a name surrounded by such a blaze of glory as to blind the
eyes of all human kind to the baseness of its origin, and even
to the blood with which it would still have been polluted.
But if the catastrophe is the work of one man, it was the
spirit of the times and of the nation which brought forward
that man, and concentrated in his person and character the
whole issue of the revolution. " Oh ! it is the sport (says Shake-
speare) to see the engineer hoist by his own petar." The
sufferings of Europe are compensated and avenged in the
humiliation of France. It is now to be seen what use the
avengers will make of their victory. I place great reliance
upon the moderation, equity, and humanity of the Emperor
Alexander, and I freely confess I have confidence in nothing
else. The allies of the continent must be governed entirely
by him, and as his resentments must be sufficiently gratified
by the plenitude of his success, and the irretrievable down-
fall of his enemy, I hope and wish to believe that he has
discerned the true path of glory open before him, and that
he will prove inaccessible to all the interested views and
rancorous passions of his associates. The great danger at
the present moment appears to me to be that the policy of
crippling France, to guard against her future power, will be
44 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
carried too far. Of the dispositions of England there can be
no question; of those which will stimulate all the immediate
neighbors of France there can be as little doubt; and France
can have so little to say or to do for herself, that she begins
by taking the sovereign who is to seal her doom, from the
hands of her enemies. The real part for the Emperor Alex-
ander now to perform is that of the umpire and arbitrator of
Europe. To fill that part according to the exigency of the
times, he must forget that he has been the principal party
to the war; he must lay aside all his own passions and resist
all the instigations of his co-operators. He must discern
the true medium between the excess of liberality which
would hazard the advantages of the present opportunity to
circumscribe the power of France within bounds consistent
with the safety and tranquillity of her neighbors, and the
excess of caution which the jealousy of those neighbors, and
perhaps his own, would suggest, to secure them at all events,
by reducing France to a state of real impotence, and thus
leaving her future situation dependent upon their discre-
tion. I have no doubt that the Emperor will see all this in
the general principle, and I wait not without anxiety to ob-
serve its application to his measures. . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Reval, May 1/13, 1814.
. . . The oracle of political news here is a Riga gazette,
called the Tushauer, that is, the Spectator. It comes twice
a week, and Mr. Rodde has the obliging attention of sending
it to me. I find in it news enough — as much as I am desirous
to know. The war in France has ended in such a singular
manner that I am perfectly at a loss what to think about it.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 45
They say that in the typhoons of the East India seas, there is
sometimes an instantaneous transition from a previous
hurricane to a total calm. It is the aptest emblem of the
present moment. But the calm is as dangerous as the
storm, and it is generally very quickly followed by a tempest
equally tremendous from the opposite quarter. In neither
of these respects do I apprehend that the parallel will hold;
but when Napoleon shall be fairly and completely out of
the way, and out of the question (which he is long before
this) we shall have the opportunity of ascertaining whether
the allies have really been thinking they had nothing to do
but to crush him, and whether the peace of the world is to
be secured by his removal. . . .
Stockholm, May 31, 18 14.
... It is not yet known here that there has been any
appointment in England of commissioners to meet those of
the United States. Mr. Gallatin and Bayard, instead of
coming to Gothenburg, have remained in England. The
proposal has been made, somewhere, to remove the seat
of the negotiations to Holland, and although I do not approve
of this step, it may have been carried so far that I shall be
under the necessity of acquiescing in it. If it should be so,
possibly Mr. Clay, Mr. Russell and myself will go by water
in the John Adams, from Gothenburg to Amsterdam. If
on the other hand, as is my earnest wish, we should finally
meet the British commissioners at Gothenburg, I fully expect
to return to you, by water from Gothenburg, and hope to
accomplish the voyage and be with you at latest by the
first of September.. . . .
Stockholm, June 2, 1814.
. . . The English mail of May 13 arrived here yesterday.
The British government have appointed commissioners
46 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
to meet us — Admiral Lord Gambier, Mr. Adams, and Mr.
Goulbourn.1 It was expected that a proposition would be
made from the English side, to change the place of the con-
ferences, and meet in Holland. My colleagues were prepared
to accede to this proposal upon condition that it should be
made from the other side, and I expect that on arriving at
Gothenburg I shall find it all so settled as to have no alter-
native left but to go on.2 As it was all done without consult-
ing me, I trust I shall not be answerable for it. I dislike
it for a multitude of reasons, to speak in the New England
styles, too tedious to mention; but in matters of much more
importance I shall cheerfully sacrifice any personal conven-
iences and any opinion as far as my sense of the public in-
terest will admit, to the accommodation and inclinations of
my colleagues. . . .
The letters from England say that there is a most extraor-
dinary stagnation there of all commerce; no demand from
anywhere either of colonial produce or their manufactures;
exchanges all against them, and all going down. What will
perhaps surprise you is, that if we had asked to go to England
it would not have been allowed; because it was not wished
that we should be so near to certain visitors 3 expected there.
This I believe is "more strange than true." . . .
1 Their instructions were not given until July 28, and are printed in Letters and
Despatches of Lord Castlereagh, X. 67.
2 See Adams, Memoirs, June I, 18 14.
3 Emperor Alexander.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 47
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 134. [James Monroe]
Stockholm, 28 May, 18 14.
Sir:
On the 28th of last month I left St. Petersburg and pro-
ceeded to Reval, where I embarked in a merchant vessel
bound to this place. After much detention by adverse
winds and by the ice with which the Gulf of Finland is yet
obstructed, I landed here on Wednesday the 25th instant.1
Upon my arrival I found that of the five commissioners
Mr. Clay alone was at Gothenburg. That Mr. Gallatin and
Mr. Bayard have remained in England and have written to
propose a removal of the place of negotiation from Gothen-
burg to Holland or to London. That Mr. Clay and Mr.
Russell have conditionally consented to the removal to
Holland, and that the reply of Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard
has not yet been received here, but is expected by the first
mail from England.2
In reflecting upon the instructions to the mission and upon
the proposal of removing to Holland the seat of the confer-
ences, which has probably proceeded too far to be revoked,
I have concluded not without hesitation to go on to Gothen-
burg. For the motives to this hesitation I beg leave to refer
you to my letter of 22 November, 181 3, and to the evidence
upon which my opinion there expressed was founded, which
evidence was transmitted to you by the same conveyance
with my letter. As there is no alteration in the principle of
our instructions, and I have no reason to believe that there
1 The incidents of the journey are given in Adams, Memoirs.
- See Adams, Writings of Gallatin, I. 606, 608.
48 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
has been any alteration, at least any favorable alteration in
the dispositions of the British government, I cannot enter-
tain a doubt that our conferences, wherever held, will be
arrested at the threshold by an utter impossibility of agree-
ing upon the basis of negotiation. Under these circumstances
I should have thought it my duty to return forthwith to my
post at St. Petersburg, but for the hope that we shall receive
before the conferences can commence new instructions upon
which the conclusion of a peace may become possible.
Mr. Russell and myself intend leaving this place in two
or three days for Gothenburg, where I shall take the earliest
opportunity of writing you again. In the meantime I re-
main etc.
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
United States Corvette John Adams
Below Mingo, Sunday, 12 June, 1814.
. . . The servant x whom I took with me from St. Peters-
burg has left me, and is a serious loss. I offered to take
him with me, but he had no inclination to go so far from
Sweden and Russia; and he objected that he could not be
very useful to me in a country where he would be a total
stranger, and ignorant of the language. This was very
true, and for the same reason I have deferred engaging an-
other man until we come to some landing. But Mr. Hughes,2
the Secretary of the Legation, had left a Norwegian boy, and
Mr. Shaler 3 (an attache) an Otaheitean, to go on the ship,
and they are to serve me instead of a valet de chambre until
1 Axel Gabriel Gahbroos.
2 Christopher Hughes (1786-1849.)
3 William Shaler, afterwards in the consular service.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 49
we come to the place of meeting. I had a very urgent and
even importunate solicitation yesterday morning from a
Frenchman, whose great desire was to go to America, and
I believe I should have taken him but for his extraordinary
talents. For he assured me that he was one of the greatest
coiffeurs that ever was bred at Paris; that he had dressed
the head of the Crown Prince and of all the royal family
at Stockholm; that he could make one a wig that it would
be a pleasure to wear; and besides that he had a most un-
common talent pour la danse. He had been four years in
this country, but the climate did not agree with his health,
and he must say, there was no encouragement or reward for
talents in Sweden. The man appeared really distressed, and
I was more than half inclined to take him upon trust, until
he disclosed his skill pour la danse, and menaced me with a
wig. . . .
The officers of this ship are by no means of this class
[non-combatants]. Captain Angus1 was with Truxtun when
they took the Vengeance and distinguished himself last
summer in the war upon the Lakes of Canada. The first
lieutenant, Yarnall, was Perry's first lieutenant in the
glorious victory on Lake Erie; and the second lieutenant,
Cooper, was in the Hornet when she sunk the Peacock, and
on board that vessel at the time of the catastrophe. There
are on board the ship fourteen midshipmen. Captain Angus
assures me that we have now in the navy seventy officers,
regularly bred and perfectly competent to the command of
a ship; if they had the ships I have no doubt but that in
less than seven years they would form seven times seventy,
prepared to meet on equal terms any captain in the British
navy. . . .
1 Samuel Angus (1784-1840), of the John Adams.
5o THE WRITINGS OF [1814
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, June 25, 1814.
. . . You are sufficiently acquainted with my disposi-
tion to know that it was some, and not inconsiderable
gratification to my feelings to find myself the first here. It
was unavoidable that some of us should wait a few days for
the others; and I am very sure there was not one member of
the commission so anxious to avoid waiting as I was to
avoid being waited for. Even my detention at Reval, so
mortifying and vexatious to myself, has not for one hour
delayed the movements of my colleagues, nor retarded the
time of our meeting at this place. One consequence it has
however had, which I deeply regret. I have told you here-
tofore that Colonel Milligan was sent by Mr. Bayard as a
special messenger to Gothenburg to propose the alteration
of the place, and that Messrs. Clay and Russell consented to
it, upon condition that the proposition should come in form
from the English side. It was accordingly so made and
accepted, and I found myself destined to Ghent instead of
Gothenburg, without having had any voice in the question.
Had I not been so unfortunately detained at Reval, I should
have been at Gothenburg when Colonel Milligan arrived
there upon his embassy, and in that case none of us would
ever have come to Ghent. For myself, at least, I answer.
I never would have consented to come here. If a majority
of my colleagues had concluded upon the measure, I would
have returned immediately to St. Petersburg, and left them
to conclude the peace as they saw fit. At this hour I should
have been with you. If in consequence of my adhesion to
Gothenburg, the conclusion had been to meet there, I have
no doubt that at this moment the whole business would have
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 51
been finished. We could have been all assembled before
the first of this month, and what we have to do could not
have taken three weeks of time. I should now have been
on my way to join you. I still believe, as I wrote you from
Stockholm, that we shall not all be here sooner than the
middle of July. The change of plan has thus wasted nearly
two months, and in my full conviction, to no useful purpose
whatever. . . .
My aversion to this new arrangement arises, however,
from considerations solely and exclusively of the public
interest. For myself I must acknowledge that my second
voyage and journey has been far more agreeable than the
first. It was in the first place more expeditious. I received
the notification to come here, within thirty miles of Stock-
holm, and that day three weeks I was on the spot. I had
been nearly six weeks in going from St. Petersburg there,
certainly not half the distance. It was also in all its cir-
cumstances more pleasant. The voyage from Gothenburg
to the Texel was like a party of pleasure — a large, comfort-
able and fast sailing ship, excellent fare and agreeable com-
pany. From the Texel to this place the roads are all good,
and the country at this season is one continual garden. We
have all the time been approaching to the summer, while
the summer has been approaching us. The weather has
been exactly such as a traveller could wish for — not so cold
as to be uncomfortable, nor so warm as to be oppressive,
to the horses or to ourselves. I have revisited a country
endeared to me by many pleasing recollections of all the
early stages of my life — of infancy, youth, and manhood.
I found it in all its charm precisely the same that I had first
seen it; precisely the same that I had last left it. Sweden
since I saw it before has changed, greatly changed; and by
no means for the better. It was then, though a poor, ap-
52 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
parently a happy country. It is now a picture of misery.
But if there is anything upon earth that presents an image
of permanency, it is the face of Holland. The only change
that I could perceive in it is an improvement. The cities
and the country around them have, I think, an appearance
rather more animated and flourishing than I ever witnessed
heretofore. Their connection with France has infused into
them a small portion of the French activity and vivacity.
In this country the change has been much greater. Antwerp,
when I first saw it, was a desolation, a mournful monument
of opulence in the last stage of decay. It is now again what
it had once been, a beautiful and prospering city. But an
English garrison in possession of the place, and English
commissaries daily expected to carry away in triumph one-
third of the formidable fleet floating on the river, and to
demolish all the ships on the stocks, the precious hopes of
futurity, a present fearful foreboding of what Antwerp will
soon be again. The fate of Belgium is yet undecided. Aus-
tria, Prussia, Holland, France and England, all covet its
possession, and the prospect now is that the gold of England
will turn the scales. The Netherlands will be a British
province. . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, June 28, 1814.
. . . When I told you in my last letter that I had found
nothing changed in Holland, I had forgotten the visit which
I made at Amsterdam to the venerable old Stad-house,
which has been metamorphosed first into a royal, and now
into a sovereign-princely palace. I took no pleasure in the
transformation, and wished they would turn it back again
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 53
into a Stad-house. The upper floor has become a formal
gallery of pictures, and has a number of excellent paintings
of the Dutch school. Some of the best are large historical
pieces which belonged to the city of Amsterdam, and have
always been there. The royal apartments are on the lower
floor, furnished with elegance, but with not much splendor.
They are now appropriated to the use of the Sovereign
Prince and his family, when at Amsterdam. Their residence
for the present, however, is at the Hague, and will doubtless
continue there. The traces of the Napoleon family have
been removed as fully as the convenience of the moment
would admit. There was a large full-length portrait of the
Emperor in one of the rooms: the place where it stood is yet
marked out by the different color of the damask wainscoting
which was covered by its frame, and thus protected from
fading. There is one of the fashionable timepieces with a
bronze figure of him standing by its side; but as his name was
not under it, and it could be recognized only by the re-
semblance, it was a good economical principle not to lose
a handsome piece of furniture for a trifle, and the spectator
is not bound to know that the figure is the image of Bona-
parte. A square of window-glass within the walls of the
palace still bears the inscription written with a diamond
"Vive Louis Napoleon Roi de Hollande"; but to remove it
would cost a new square of glass, and why should that ex-
pense be incurred? It is the happiness of that country, and
has saved them perhaps from many a calamity, that all
their political enthusiasm during the convulsions from which
Europe is emerging has been invariably kept subordinate
to the steady manners and national spirit of good husbandry.
I have heard them talk like their neighbors of liberty, of
equality, of fraternity, and of independence. I have seen
them change the orange for the three-colored cockade, and
54 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
the three-colored again for the orange. They have had since
my remembrance a stadtholder and States General, a
National Convention, a Grand Pensionary, a king of the
Napoleon manufacture; have been travestied into a province
of France, and have lastly got a Sovereign Prince. All these
changes have been effected successively, without bloodshed,
without internal convulsion, without violence. They have
stretched and have shrunk like the piece of india rubber that
you use in drawing; but throughout all their changes, the
sober, cautious, thrifty character of the nation has invaria-
bly maintained its ascendancy, and of all Europe they are
unquestionably the people who have suffered the least from
the hurricane of its late revolution. The willow has weath-
ered by bending to every gale as it shifted, the storm which
has prostrated the sturdiest oaks
dont la tete aux lieux etoient prochaine
et dont les pieds touchoient a l'Empire des morts.
The evening before we left Amsterdam I went to the
French theatre. In the interval between the plays, the
orchestra struck up a Dutch air. There was a gentleman
sitting by me, whose eyes brightened at the sound, and he
told me that it was a national air. Some few persons clapped
their hands, but he observed that the first enthusiasm had
somewhat cooled down. Immediately afterwards they
played "God Save the King." There was no clapping of
hands. I turned to my friend and asked him, if that too
was a national air? He hung his head and said, No! . . -1
1 "Here we have listeners and lookers-on in abundance. Never in my life did I
find myself surrounded by so much curiosity." To Abigail Adams, June 30, 1814.
Ms.
l8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 55
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, July 2, 1814.
. . . The Emperor Alexander may now be truly called
the darling of the human race. Concerning him, and him
alone, I have heard but one voice since I left his capital; not
only in his own dominions, not only here and in Holland,
but even in Sweden, where it was least to be expected that
a Russian sovereign should be a favorite. In France, per-
haps, his popularity is at the highest. Even those who at
heart do not thank him for the present he has made them
cannot deny his moderation, his humanity, his magnanimity.
Of all the allies he was the one who had been the most
wantonly and cruelly outraged. Of all the allies he was the
only one who took no dishonorable revenge, who advanced
no extravagant pretensions.
It is well understood that he alone protected Paris from
the rapacity of those who had marched with Napoleon, and
shared the plunder of Moscow. He has redeemed his pledge
to the world. He has shown himself as great by his for-
bearance and modesty in prosperity as by his firmness in
the hour of his own trial. But the Ethiopians have not
changed their hue, nor the leopards their spots. They are
already wrangling about the spoils; and we hear people
talking as familiarly about the guerre de partage, as if it was
already commenced. . . .
56 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 135. [James Monroe]
Ghent, 3 July, 18 14.
Sir:
On the 2nd of June I left Stockholm, and on the 6th
arrived at Gothenburg. I met on the road Mr. Connell,
who had been dispatched by Mr. Clay to give Mr. Russell and
me information of the change of the place of negotiation
which had been proposed by the British government, and
assented to by Mr. Bayard and Mr. Gallatin on the part of
the American ministers. Instead of some place in Holland
which had been previously intimated as the wish of the
British government, they had finally fixed upon this city,
the effect of which as we have now reason to believe will be
to remove us from neutral territory to a place occupied by a
British garrison.
There are as yet no British troops here, but they are at
Antwerp and Brussels, and are expected here in the course
of a few days. In proposing this place as a substitute for
one unequivocally neutral, it appears to me it was incumbent
on the British government to give notice to the American
ministers of the change in the condition of the place, which
it must have been at that time contemplated by them to
make.
Mr. Clay had determined to come from Gothenburg by
land, and had left that city before I arrived there. Mr.
Russell was detained a few days longer at Stockholm, but
reached Gothenburg on the 10th of June. The next day we
embarked on board of the John Adams, and on the 18th
landed at the Helder. From thence we came by land to this
i8i41 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 57
city, where we arrived on the 24th.1 Mr. Bayard was here
on the 27th, and Mr. Clay on the 28th. Mr. Gallatin comes
from London by way of Paris and we expect him here to-
morrow. . . .
TO LEVETT HARRIS
Ghent, 9 July, 1814.
Dear Sir:
Mr. Gallatin on his arrival 2 here delivered me your favor
from London of 21 June, and I had previously received in
Sweden that of 8 May. I had delayed answering this one
because I was not authorized to communicate officially with
Count Nesselrode, and because I knew the Emperor would
before his arrival in London have been apprised through the
regular channel, the Department of Foreign Affairs, of your
charge at St. Petersburg. I had notified it in an official
communication to Mr. Weydemeyer on the 7th of April,
and Mr. Weydemeyer had assured me that my note should
be immediately transmitted to the Emperor.
1 I have been most unnaturally occupied; for I have accomplished two voyages
by sea, and two journies by land. Have crossed the Gulf of Finland and Baltic
from Reval to Stockholm, and the North Sea from Gothenburg to the Texel. Have
traversed the Kingdom of Sweden and the sovereign princedom of the Netherlands;
and here I am in the city of Charles the 5th waiting with my four colleagues, until
it shall please the mistress of the world, as she now fancies herself, to send her
deputies for the purpose, as she imagines, of receiving our submission.
"Submission, however, thus much I can assure you, is neither our temper, nor
that of our masters. The only question that can possibly arise among us is, how
far we can abandon the claim which we have upon our adversary for concession
upon her part. And with this disposition on both sides at the very opening of con-
ferences, I am well assured the work to which we have been called, that of con-
ciliating British and American pretensions, will be found more unnatural than your
and my wandering life." To John Adams, July 7, 1814. Ms.
* July 7.
58 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
I learnt with much pleasure that Mr. Gallatin and you
obtained of the Emperor a private audience in London,1 and
that he retains unimpaired his friendly sentiments and dis-
positions towards the United States. I am not surprised
that the Emperor should inquire pourquoi Gand? et pourquoi
Gothenburg? but these questions can be answered only by
the British government. Both the places were proposed by
them, and both barely acquiesced in on our part. We should
much have preferred treating at St. Petersburg. But our
own government, with good reason as I believe, determined
that it should not be at London. Not that I imagine that the
place of negotiation will have the weight of a straw upon its
result. The questions at issue between the United States
and Great Britain, my dear sir, and the temper prevailing,
on both sides, you may rely upon it, are not to be affected
by such insignificant incidents as the place where the con-
ferences are to be held, or the official documents interchanged.
Your information upon this subject, from authority however
high,2 must be erroneous. Queen Mab's thimble would have
been a fire-bucket to extinguish the flames of Moscow,
just as important as the place where we should meet the
British commissioners was to the issue of the negotiation.
But the President of the United States felt, and it was a
feeling worthy of the Chief Magistrate of an independent
and spirited people, that the metropolis of our enemy was
not a suitable place to be substituted for the capital of a
common friend and impartial mediator. Nor do I precisely
think with you that the selection of Ghent was a judicious
choice on the part of the British government. Their mo-
tives for the choice are indeed obvious enough. They mani-
1 June 18. See James Gallatin, Diary, 24.
2 Harris had spoken of Count Munstcr, the friend and companion of the Prince
Regent.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 59
fest at once a fear of the American commissioners, and a
distrust of all their own allies, obviously excessive, and which
a profound policy would have been cautious not to disclose.
The Crown Prince of Sweden and the Sovereign Prince of
the Netherlands may say pourquoi Gand? as pointedly as
the Emperor Alexander, and the question conveys the
bitterest of sarcasms upon the selection made by the Re-
gent's ministers. . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, July 12, 1814.
My Dear Wife,
When I told you in my last letter that the whole American
mission extraordinary was here, I ought to have excepted
Mr. Carroll and Mr. Todd, who are still lingering at Paris.
Mr. Carroll is attached to the mission as private secretary
to Mr. Clay, and Mr. Todd is of this legation, as he was of
the former, a gentilhomme (Tambassade, quite independent
in his movements, and very naturally thinking Paris a more
agreeable residence than Ghent; notwithstanding the bon
mot of Charles the 5th, which the good people of this city
delight to repeat, that he would put Paris into his glove.
We are all in perfect good understanding and good humor
with one another, and fully determined if we stay here long
enough to make a removal from the inn where we all lodge
expedient, to take one house and live together. All the
attaches are now upon such a footing of independence that
some of them may perhaps leave us and return home in the
John Adams. I think it more probable, however, that they
will await the issue, which I still think will not be long de-
layed. Scarcely an hour passes without accumulating evi-
60 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
dence to my mind that our antagonists are fully resolved not
to make peace this time, notwithstanding which, I live in
hope, and trust in God. I must at the same time acknowl-
edge that none of my colleagues agree with me in opinion
that our stay here will be short. They calculate upon three
or four months at least, and incline even to the prospect of
passing the winter here, which I hold to be utterly impossi-
ble. I mention it to you now, because it was since I wrote
you last that the first idea has been suggested, and because
if upon the arrival of the British commissioners there should
be a rational ground for the belief that we shall pass the
winter here, I shall then propose to you to take your passage
in the first good vessel bound from Cronstadt to Amsterdam
or Rotterdam, to break up altogether our establishment at
St. Petersburg, and to come with Charles and join me here.
We should then have it at our option in the spring to return
to St. Petersburg or to America. I am, however, so far
from entertaining any expectation of wintering here, that I
only speak of it now, that if such should eventually be the
result, the notice may not come too suddenly upon you. I
shall not leave you an hour in suspense, after having any-
thing ascertained upon which I myself can depend.
We continue to have a constant supply of American
visitors, but as, after all, Ghent is not the most fascinating
place for a long residence, many of our countrymen seem to
come here only to see how we look, and take their departure
for elsewhere. Mr. Edwards and Mr. Howland are already
gone to Paris, but have been succeeded by two others,
whose names I have not discovered, but who are undoubt-
edly Yankeys. We have now here Captain Jones 1 of the
Neptune, with young Nicholson and Dr. Lawton. Mr. Rus-
sell's son George, too, found his school at Amsterdam so
1 Lloyd Jones.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 61
tiresome that he has prevailed upon his father to let him
come here. I remember what a Dutch school at Amsterdam
was thirty-four years ago enough to sympathize with George;
but he appears to me so fine a boy, and to be at an age when
time is so important, and instruction so vital to his hereafter,
that I think his danger is of finding his father too indul-
gent. . . .
Captains Angus and Jones, and the other commissioners
now here, dined with us yesterday, and to my no small
mortification Mr. Bayard remembered and toasted the day.1
It was however, done by him with so good a disposition that
I took it as kindly as it was meant. He has uniformly been
since our arrival here in the most friendly humor, and we
appear all to be animated with the same desire of harmo-
nizing together. . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, July 15, 1814.
My Dear Wife,
The stream of high and mighty travellers from London
through this place has been incessant since the passage of
the Emperor Alexander. The two sons of the King of Prus-
sia, and his brothers, the Princes Henry and William, the
second son of the Sovereign Prince of the Netherlands,
Count Nesselrode, and lastly Field Marshal Prince Bliicher,
have all been successively here. Most of them have stopped
either to dine or to pass the night at the house where we
lodge, but I have not had the fortune to see any one of them.
The King of Prussia and the Duchess of Oldenburg went
directly from Calais to Paris. The Prince of Orange, who
1 His birthday. He was forty-seven years of age.
62 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
was to have married the Princess Charlotte of Wales, landed
at Helvoetsluys and went on immediately to the Hague.
The marriage, you know, is broken off, and according to the
newspapers the Prince was treated in England with very
little respect. The rupture however is ascribed principally
to the lady herself, who is said to have been so averse to
going out of the Kingdom that she insisted upon making an
article of the contract of marriage that she should not. And
the Prince having consented to this, she then required that
he should also subject himself to the same interdiction. It
is probable that she was resolved to raise obstacles more
perseveringly than he was prepared to remove them. And
there were other considerations of a political nature, which
might contribute to the separation of these royal lovers. The
project of uniting this country with Holland, under the
authority of the Sovereign Prince was perhaps connected
with that of the marriage, and is likely to be dissolved with
it. In the new combinations of European politics arising
from the restoration of the Bourbons and the dismember-
ment of France, England is apparently tending to the policy
of a close alliance with Austria, and will eventually restore
this country to her. The late allies are understood to be not
very cordially affected towards one another, and there is
much talk of a new war, but I believe it to be without foun-
dation. . . .
TO ALEXANDER HILL EVERETT
Ghent, July 16, 1814.
... I mentioned in my last letter to you that I had re-
ceived and read with poetical pleasure your brother's [Ed-
ward] (j> j3 k poem,1 though I had not been equally gratified by
1 American Poets, 1812.
1814I JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 63
its political complexion. I have learnt since then, from my
mother, that he has assumed the arduous and honorable
task of succeeding our lamented friend Buckminster; an
occasion upon which he might emphatically say who is
sufficient for these things? ' I have the satisfaction of being
one of the proprietors in that Church, and I look forward
with pleasure to the period when, with my family, I shall
be an habitual attendant upon his administration. I will
not promise to agree with him in politics, nor even in re-
ligious doctrine; but there is one, and that the most essential
point, upon which I am confident we shall never disagree —
I mean Christian charity.
I regret that with your letter I had not the pleasure of
receiving the copy of your address to the Charitable Fire
Society,1 and I have heard from other quarters of certain
political speculations of yours, which I have more than one
reason for wishing to see. As your design of entering upon
the field of public discussion has been carried into execution,
and as American principles are the foundation of the system
to which you have pledged your exertions, you will not
doubt the interest which I shall take in every step of your
career. Notwithstanding the inauspicious appearances
of the present moment, I humbly trust in God, that Ameri-
can principles will ultimately prevail in our country. But
should it be otherwise in the inscrutable decrees of divine
providence, should the greatness and prosperity to which
the continuance of the Union cannot possibly fail of exalting
our native country, be deemed too great for mortal man to
attain; should we be destined to crumble into the vile and
miserable fragments of a great power, petty, paltry prin-
cipalities or republics, the tools of a common enemy's
malice and envy, and drenching ourselves age after age in
1 Delivered May 28, 18 13, and printed for the Society.
64 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
one another's blood; far preferable should I deem it to fall
in the cause of Union and glory, than to triumph in that of
dismemberment, disgrace and impotence. As Christians,
whatever befalls us or our fellow men we must submit to
the will of heaven; but in that case I should be tempted to
say with Lucan, "Victrix causa dis placuit, sed victa
Catoni." . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, July 19, 1814.
. . . We have contracted to take a house, where the
five members of the mission, and the Secretary, Mr. Hughes,
will all reside together. We engage it for one month, and
it is to be furnished ready for us to go into next Saturday.
This has been a negotiation of some delicacy; for although,
as I wrote you, we had all agreed as it were par acclamation
to live together, yet when it came to the arrangement of
details, we soon found that one had one thing to which he
attached a particular interest, and another another, and it
was not so easy to find a contractor who would accommodate
himself to five distinct and separate humors. It is one of
your French universalists who has finally undertaken to
provide for us. He keeps a shop of perfumery, and of mil-
linery, and of prints and drawings; and he has on hand a
stock of handsome second hand furniture. But then he was
brought up a cook, and he is to supply our table to our
satisfaction; and he is a marchand de vin, and will serve us
with the best liquors that are to be found in the city. This
was the article that stuck hardest in the passage; for one
of us, and I know you will suspect it was I, was afraid that
he would pass off upon us bad wine, and make us pay for
i8i41 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 65
it as if it was the best. The bargain was very nearly broken
off upon the question whether we should be obliged to take
wine from him, or, if we supply ourselves from elsewhere,
to pay him one franc a bottle for drawing the cork. We
finally came to a compromise, and are to begin by taking
wine from him. But they must be at his peril such as we
shall relish; for if not, we shall look further, and draw the
corks without paying him any tax or tribute for it at all. . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, July 22, 1814.
... If the change of place of negotiation had been,
as was first suggested, to the Hague, it would certainly have
been personally to me, considering only the circumstance
of individual accommodation, far more agreeable than either
Gothenburg or Ghent. Ghent is to us all a more agreeable
residence than I think Gothenburg would have been. The
great and essential objection which there was in my mind
was the great and unnecessary delay, which I knew it must
occasion. I suppose this was really the precise object of the
enemy in proposing the change. He wanted a pretext for
delay, and I would not have allowed it. He began by talk-
ing of the Hague, and he finished by giving us Ghent. The
change of the place gave him two months, and now he still
delays without even offering a pretext. The hostility of the
Little Lord ' is a mere sympathy. It is like the whispering
gallery at St. Paul's. You whisper on one side of the dome,
and the listener at the other side hears the sound. Lord
Castlereagh whispers at Paris or London, and more than
echoes talk along the walls of the maison Demidoff. If we
1 Sir William Schaw Cathcart (1755-1853), the British ambassador to Russia.
66 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
had stuck to Gothenburg as I would have done, this paltry
shuffling would long before this have been at an end. The
true negotiators, as his Lordship said, were the bayonets
from Bordeaux. It is with them that our country must treat,
and it is by disposing properly of them that she can alone
produce a pacific disposition in England.
What you have heard of the character and temper of
Mr. Clay coincides exactly with all the experience I have
had of them hitherto; * but the other report of a public
breach and misunderstanding between two other gentlemen
is altogether unfounded. So far from it that we now lodge
all together in one house, and have a common table among
ourselves; that we have engaged, as I wrote you before, a
house, where we shall still lodge and dine together, and that
there is on all sides a perfect good humor and understanding.
The junior attaches, who were last year in Russia, appear
to me both much improved. They are, I believe, both wholly
independent of their former patrons, and can therefore have
no collisions with them. Their pretensions are not so saliant
as they were, and their deportment is consequently more
pleasing. The Colonel is not only reconciled to the Chevalier
[Bayard], but more assiduous to him than ever. The Cheva-
lier himself is entirely another man, with good health, good
spirits, good humor, always reasonable, and almost always
as you have seen him in his most amiable moments. Whether
there was something baleful in the waters of the Neva, I
know not; but our last year's visitors, all here, seem of an-
other and a much better world.
When I wrote you that I hoped to be with you by the first
of September, it was on the supposition that we should do
1 "Mr. Clay, I understand, is one of the most amiable and finest temper'd men
in the world, and I am told you will be delighted with him. Young Lewis is lavish
in his praise." Louisa Catherine Adams to John Quincy Adams, June 10, 1814. Ms.
l8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 67
our business at Gothenburg. I can no longer entertain such
a hope. You know the situation in which we are now here,
and the promise we had that the other party should be here
to meet us in the first days of this month. I am aware how
painful it will be to you to be left so long in suspense, whether
I can go to you, or you are to come to me, and only ask you
to recollect that sharing all your anxieties in this respect,
I have the further mortification of feeling the same tardiness
of our adversaries as a purposed insult upon our coun-
try. . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, July 29, 18 14.
. . . There was last week, on the 20th, a debate in
the House of Commons, in which notice was taken of the
delays of the British government relating to the negotiation
with America. Mr. Whitbread asked Lord Castlereagh,
"Whether the persons sent to Gothenburg from the Amer-
ican government were quite forgotten by His Majesty's
Ministers, or whether any one had been appointed to treat
with them?" His Lordship answered that persons had been
appointed to treat with them. The report of the rest of the
debate on the subject, whether purposely or by the blunders
of the reporter, is so expressed that it is impossible to make
sense of it. The substance however is, that Mr. Whitbread
stated as the general impression in public that there was
not that alacrity in the British government to meet the
overtures from America which he thought it important
should be manifested. Lord Castlereagh answered that
there was no disposition on the part of England to delay the
negotiations with America; that the departure of the British
68 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
commissioners had been regulated so that they might find
the American mission all assembled here, but that by his
last advices from Paris, Mr. Gallatin was still there. Now, my
dear friend, we have the most substantial reason for know-
ing that besides all the London newspapers which had an-
nounced Mr. Gallatin's departure from Paris the 4th of this
month, Lord Castlereagh had special and precise informa-
tion that he had been here at Ghent, a full fortnight, on the
day of that debate. So much for Lord Castlereagh's candor.
But the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Vansittart, in the
same debate was more ingenuous; for he said "that the war
with America was not likely to terminate speedily, and might
lead to a considerable scale of expense." Mr. Canning
some time before in another debate had enjoined upon the
ministry not to make peace without depriving America of
her right to the fisheries; and one of the Lords of Admiralty
is reported to have said in the same House of Commons, that
the war with America would now be continued to accomplish
the deposition of Mr. Madison. An article in the Courier,
the ministerial paper, of the 22d, countenances the same
idea. It states that the federalists in America are about
taking a high tone; that they will address Congress for the
removal of Mr. Madison, preparatory to his impeachment;
on the ground that England will never make peace with
him. . . -1
1 "Further communications from America inform us, that the Federal party as-
sume a very high and decided tone. Addresses to Congress are to be set on foot
throughout all the eastern states for the removal of Mr. Madison from office, pre-
paratory to his impeachment. It is represented that he has displayed the most
notorious incapacity; that he has deceived and misled his countrymen by gross mis-
representations; that he has abused their confidence by secret collusion with the
late Tyrant of France; and that no fair and honourable terms of peace can be ex-
pected from Great Britain, so long as she is to treat with a person from whom she
has received such unprovoked insults, and such deliberate proofs of injustice."
Tlte Courier, July 22, 18 14.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 69
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, August I, 18 14.
Yesterday was the day of our removal from the Hotel
des Pays-Bas, on the Place d'Armes, to our own house in
the Rue des Champs. Among the important consequences
of this revolution, it has produced that of a state of separa-
tion between the primary members of the mission and the
attaches. Those gentlemen found they could accommodate
themselves with lodgings more to their taste, and as the
principle of their attachment is independence, they have
followed their humor without any interference or dissatis-
faction on our part. We should have been gratified to have
had Mr. Hughes with us, but his inclination did not pre-
cisely correspond with ours; or rather, after a choice of
apartments to accommodate five principals, the chambers
that were left were not so inviting as others that were to
be found in the city. I regret the loss of his society; for he
is lively and good-humored, smart at a repartee, and a
thorough punster, theory and practice. He has not for-
given us, and I have the most to answer for in the offense,
for calling him before he thinks it was necessary from Paris,
and he has a project of making another excursion, while
there is not much to do. He tells me that his brother-in-law,
our old friend, J. S. Smith, is to be married this summer to
Miss Nicholas.1
Mr. Dallas intended to have gone in the John Adams, and
still so intends, if another passport is obtained. Mr. Gal-
latin is very anxious that Mr. Todd should also return by the
same vessel; but Todd likes Paris, perhaps as much as
Mr. Hughes, and feels no obligation to yield obedience to
1 Caryanne, daughter of Wilson Cary Nicholas. She died in 1832.
jo THE WRITINGS OF [1814
the summons of departure from it. Hughes (and it is a good
sample of his wit) always calls him Monsieur Toad.
Mr. Hughes has this day a letter from Mr. Beasley men-
tioning that the departure of the British commissioners
would probably be postponed until after the great fete,
which takes place on this day.1 If we were but sure they
would come then, we should not have much longer to wait.
They are making and circulating all sorts of reports to ac-
count for these delays. Among the rest they pretend that
we ourselves had proposed that further time should be
taken, that we might receive new instructions from our
government. This is not true.
I believe I have suggested the true cause of their waiting.
They have taken measures to strike a great blow in America,
and they wish to have the advantage of the panic which they
suppose it will excite. Among the rumors of the time I have
heard that they intended not to treat with us, until the Con-
gress which is to meet at Vienna. That, you know, was to
have been on this day, and was afterwards postponed to the
first of October. Lord Castlereagh lately promised the
English nation a long, profound, unsuspicious peace in
Europe, which is certainly more than will be realized. The
peace will be neither profound nor unsuspicious, but it may
very possibly be long; that is, it may last several years. As
to the talk of a new war in October, I hold it to be perfectly
absurd. The Congress at Vienna will prevent a war if there
is now a prospect of one; and the policy of England now and
then will be to use all her influence to prevent it. . . .
■The "grand jubilee," being the centenary of the accession of the House of
Brunswick to the English throne and the anniversary of the battle of the Nile.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 71
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, August 5, 18 14.
... I know not who it was who so positively assured
you that there were to be no British commissioners ap-
pointed to meet us; but it must have been somebody deep
in the secrets of the British Cabinet. I wrote you on the 2d
of June from Stockholm that British commissioners were
appointed and gave you their names. Lord Castlereagh on
the 20th of July told the House of Commons that commis-
sioners were appointed, though the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer gave at the same time a broad hint that it was not
intended they should make peace. Now for something
nearer at hand. We have a letter from Mr. Beasley, dated
29 July, this day week. He says he has just seen Mr. Hamil-
ton, under secretary of state for foreign affairs, who in-
formed him that the British commissioners had kissed the
Prince Regent's hand the day before, and that they would
certainly leave London for Ghent in all this week. Mr. Ham-
ilton, to be sure, had before written to Air. Irving that they
would leave London on or about the first of July; but the
ceremony of taking leave of the Regent looks more as if
they were in earnest. I now confidently expect them within
a week from this day.
I was almost as much gratified with your account of the
entertainment at Pavlowski as if I had been one of the party
myself. You do not mention the occasion of it, but I find
upon recurring to the calendar that it was the Grand Duke
Nicholas' birthday. I congratulate you upon your having
got so well through the day, and rejoice that you have had
that occasion for enlivening your summer. The Emperor
has, I presume, before this reached St. Petersburg, and now
72 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
will be the time for fetes and rejoicings. The newspapers
say that he has declined accepting the title that was offered
him of the Blessed, and has referred it to posterity to erect a
monument in honor of him, if he deserve it. This answer
is so conformable to his character that I believe it to be in
substance true, and it is among the strongest proofs that he
deserves both the title and the monument. It shows a mind
unsubdued by prosperity, as it had already proved itself
superior to adversity. It indicates a just estimate of the
honors that can be conferred upon an absolute sovereign by
his co-temporaries, and of those which may be conferred
by prosperity.
Mr. Beasley has sent us some of the latest American
papers that have been received; they are to the 20th of June,
and exhibit no indication of the intentions announced by the
British gazettes on the part of the federalists to address
Congress for the removal and impeachment of Mr. Madison.
Quite the contrary. The New York election has given a
great accession of strength to the government of the United
States; and the Massachusetts governor and legislature are
retreating and boast of their forbearance. There has been a
new religious festival in Boston 1 upon the fall of Bonaparte
and the restoration of the Bourbons. The State House and
a few private houses were illuminated, but the Chronicle says
it did not take; that it was only a solemn festival, for they
could not get so much as a shout from the boys in the streets.
That they asked for what the State House was illuminated?
and some said it was because Bonaparte had been bribed
with 6 millions to give up France to the English; and others
said it was because Governor Strong was chosen instead of
1 June 15. The resolutions are given in Boston Gazette, June 16, but do not answer
to the description in this letter. The Chronicle did not print them, but the refer-
ence may be to the London Chronicle.
l8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 73
Samuel Dexter. At this same religious festival several
resolutions were proposed by Mr. Gore, about as wise as the
festival itself. One of them is merely a lamentation that
on account of the war, they cannot express as they wish they
could their admiration of a certain hero who must be name-
less. There is a speech made in the Senate of Massachusetts
by a Mr. Holmes,1 in which he bears down upon the junto
as Perry did upon the British on Lake Erie. There has been
nothing like it for many years. The federal papers say that
Mr. Otis upheld to it with a torrent of eloquence, but they
have not yet published his speech. That of Holmes is entire
in the Chronicle of 20 June, and its main points are too
stubborn for Otis's torrent to overwhelm. It appears that
Otis must have resigned his seat as a judge, by his being
again in the Senate. . . .
We begin to be weary, not of one another, but of our bar-
gain for the house. You will not be surprised at this when
I tell you that our landlord is Mr. Lannuyer. We find him
as tiresome as his name. I shall complain as little as possible,
but shall perhaps at the close of the month return to the
Hotel des Pays-Bas. . . .2
1 John Holmes, of York.
2 "We have the satisfaction of living in perfect harmony; the discontents of our
domestic arrangements are all with our landlord, and none with one another. Even
he gives us better satisfaction than he did. Mr. Hughes and the private secretaries
all dine with us every day. One of our troubles you must know was that this house
was haunted, and its ill-fame in this respect was so notorious, that the servants and
the children of our party were very seriously alarmed before, and when we first
came in. The perturbed spirits have all forsaken the house since we entered it,
and we hope they are laid for ever." To Louisa Catherine Adams, August 12, 1814.
Ms.
74 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, August 9, 18 14.
. . . The British commissioners arrived here on Satur-
day evening the 6th inst., and yesterday we had our first
conference with them. Their manner is polite and concilia-
tory. Their professions both with regard to their govern-
ment and themselves, liberal, and highly pacific. But they
have not changed the opinion which I have constantly had
of the result. Of the prospects you may judge with more
certainty from the speech of the Speaker of the British
House of Commons, than from the professions of the com-
missioners. Last week the session of Parliament closed.
The Regent in his speech said that he regretted the contin-
uance of the war with the United States; that notwithstand-
ing the unprovoked oppression upon their part, he was
willing to make peace on terms honorable to both nations;
but that in the meantime the war would be carried on with
increased vigor. But the Speaker undertook to dictate
terms in his speech, and roundly declared that the House of
Commons could never consent to terminate the war but by
the establishment of the maritime rights of Great Britain. You
will now receive in the most exclusive confidence whatever
I shall write you on this subject. Say not a word of it to
any human being, until the result shall be publicly known.
At present I do not think that the negotiation will be of
long continuance. At the same time I cannot yet speak on
the subject with perfect certainty.
i8i41 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 75
• TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE «
No. 2. [James Monroe]
Ghent, August II, 1814.
Sir,
The British Commissioners arrived in this city on Satur-
day evening the 6th inst. They are Admiral Lord Gambier,
Henry Goulburn, Esq., and Dr. William Adams.2 The day
after their arrival Mr. Baker, the secretary to their com-
mission called upon one of us (Mr. Bayard) and notified to
us that event, with the proposal from them to meet us the
day succeeding at one o'clock afternoon, at their lodgings.
We were of opinion that unless they should think fit to hold
1 A draft by Adams of a dispatch to be signed by the commission. The
dispatch sent is dated August 12, and is printed in American State Papers, Foreign
Relations, III. 705. On August 9 Adams was charged to prepare the draft of a
dispatch to the Secretary of State on the two conferences with the British pleni-
potentiaries. This draft was taken by the other commissioners. Bayard prepared
an entire new draft, which was substituted for that of Adams, but was found to be
so imperfect that Gallatin drew up a new paper, finally accepted with some amend-
ments. Adams, Memoirs, August 9-17, 1814. The words in italics were under-
scored probably by members of the commission questioning the propriety of using
them.
2 "The British commissioners are said to be personally men of moderate princi-
ples and their deportment has hitherto been of a conciliatory character. Lord
Gambier was in Boston in the year 1770, when his uncle commanded there. He
was himself then a boy, but he recollected having seen my father at that time. Dr.
Adams is an admiralty lawyer. His family, he told me, some generations ago came
from Pembrokeshire in Wales; but has for many years been settled in the county
of Essex. I think we have neither Essex kindred, nor Welsh blood in our pedigree.
His arms are a red cross. Ours I think are no other than the stripes and stars."
To Abigail Adams, August 18, 18 14. Ms. Gallatin was not "impressed with the
British" commissioners, as "men who have not made any mark and have no in-
fluence or weight, . . . but puppets of Lords Castlereagh and Liverpool."
He "felt quite capable of dealing with them." Diary of James Gallatin, 28.
76 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
the first conference at our dwelling house, it would be more
expedient to hold it at a third place. The option of either
was offered them, and they assented to the proposal of meet-
ing at a third place. We met accordingly at one o'clock on
Monday the 8th inst. and on the proposal of the British
commissioners agreed to hold the future conferences at each
other's houses alternately, and until they shall have taken
a house, entirely at ours.1
We have the honor to enclose herewith copies of the full
powers produced by them at the first conference, and of the
protocol of the first and second conferences as ultimately
agreed to by mutual consent. They opened the subject of
our meetings by assurance that the British government had
a sincere and earnest desire that the negotiation might
terminate in the conclusion of a solid and honorable peace;
and particularly that no events which had occurred since
the first proposal for this negotiation had produced the
slightest alteration either in the pacific dispositions of Great
Britain, or in the terms upon which she would be willing to
concur in restoring to both countries the blessings of peace.
These professions were answered by us, for our govern-
ment and ourselves, with expressions of reciprocal earnest-
ness and sincerity in the desire of accomplishing a peace,
and of the satisfaction with which we received those they
had addressed to us. With regard to the first point stated
by them as a proper subject for discussion, that of impress-
ment and allegiance, they intimated that the British govern-
ment did not propose this, as one which they were desirous
of discussing; but that in adverting to the origin of the war,
it was one which they could not overlook, among those which
they supposed likely to arise.2
1 This paragraph, except the first sentence, was struck out.
2 " In submitting this as the first topic we stated that we had no intention of offer-
i8i41 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 77
The principal stress of their instructions appeared to have
been concentrated upon the second point — the Indian paci-
fication and boundary. Their statement of it in the first
instance was in terms not conveying altogether the full im-
port of its meaning. The motive which they appeared to
impress upon our minds as that of the British government
in this proposal, was fidelity to the interests of their Indian
allies; a generous reluctance at concluding a peace with the
United States, leaving their auxiliaries unprotected from the
resentments of a more powerful enemy, and a desire by the
establishment of a definite boundary for the Indians to lay
the foundation of a permanent peace, not only to the In-
dians, but between the United States and Great Britain.
They expressly disclaimed any intention of Great Britain
to demand an acquisition of territory for herself. But upon
being questioned, whether it was understood as an effect of the
proposed Indian boundary that the United States and the
Indians would be precluded from the right they have hitherto
exercised of making amicable treaties between them, with-
out the consent of Great Britain; whether for example the
United States would be restricted from purchasing and they
from selling their lands; it was first answered by one ! of the
commissioners that the Indians would not be restricted from
selling their lands, but the United States would be restricted
from purchasing them; and on reflection another 2 of the
commissioners observed that it was intended that the Indian
territories should be a barrier between the British posses-
sions and those of the United States; that both Great Britain
ing any specific proposition on this subject. We did it because the subject had
been put forward by the American government in such a manner as led us to sup-
pose that they would make it a principal topic of discussion." British Commis-
sioners to Lord Castkreagh, August 9, 18 14. Ms.
1 Goulburn.
2 William Adams.
78 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
and the United States should be restricted from purchasing
their land, but that the Indians would not be restricted from
selling them to a third party.
On the point respecting the fisheries they stated that this
was regarded by their government as an object of minor
importance. That it was not intended to deny the right of
the Americans to the fisheries generally; but with regard to
the right of fishing within the limits of their jurisdiction, and
of landing and drying fish upon their territories, which had
been conceded by the treaties of peace heretofore, those
privileges would not be renewed without an equivalent.
They manifested some desire to be informed even at the
first meeting whether the American commissioners were in-
structed to treat with them upon these several points, and
they requested us to present to them such further points as
we might be instructed by our government to offer for dis-
cussion. They assented however to the desire expressed on
our part to consult together among ourselves, previous to
answering them in relation to the points presented by them,
or to stating those which we should offer on our part. This
was done at the second conference, and in the interval be-
tween the two we received the originals of your letters of
25 and 27 June, the duplicates of which have since then also
come to our hands.
At the second meeting 1 after answering that with re-
gard to the two points of the Indian pacification and bound-
ary, and the fisheries, we were not instructed to discuss them,
we observed that as they had not been objects of controversy
between the two governments heretofore, but were points
entirely new, to which no allusion had even been made by
Lord Castlereagh in his letter to you proposing this negotia-
tion, it could not be expected that they should have been
1 August 9.
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 79
anticipated by the government of the United States. That
it was a matter of course that our instructions should be con-
fined to the subjects of difference in which the war origi-
nated, and to the topics of discussion known by our govern-
ment to exist. That as to peace with the Indians, we con-
sidered that as an inevitable consequence of peace with
Great Britain; that the United States would have neither
interest nor motive for continuing the war against the Indians
separately. That commissioners had already been appointed
by the American government to treat of peace with them,
and that very possibly it might before this have been con-
cluded. That the policy of the United States towards the
Indians was the most liberal of that pursued by any nation.
That our laws interdicted the purchase of lands from them
by any individual, and that every precaution was taken to
prevent the frauds upon them which had heretofore been
practised by others. We remarked that this proposition to
give them a distinct boundary different from the boundary
already existing, a boundary to be defined by a treaty be-
tween the United States and Great Britain, was not only
new, it was unexampled. No such treaty had been made
by Great Britain, either before or since the American Revolu-
tion. No such treaty had to our knowledge ever been made
by any other European power.
In reply to the remark that no allusion had been made
to these new and extraordinary points in Lord Castlereagh's
letter to you, it was said that it could not be supposed that
Lord Castlereagh, in a letter merely proposing a negotiation,
should have enumerated the topics which might be proper
for discussion in the course, since those would naturally be
determined by the events which had subsequently occurred.
And this remark was made by the same gentleman,1 who
1 Goulburn.
8o THE WRITINGS OF [1814
had the day before assured us, with sufficient solemnity of
manner, that no events which had taken place since the
proposal of the negotiation had in the slightest degree altered
the pacific dispositions of the British government, or the
terms upon which she would be willing to conclude the peace.
Upon the observation from us that the proposition for an
Indian boundary was unexampled in the practice of civilized
nations, it was answered, that the Indians must in some
sort be considered as sovereigns, since treaties were concluded
with them both by Great Britain and the United States.
To which we replied by marking the obvious distinction be-
tween making treaties WITH them, and a treaty between two
civilized nations defining a boundary FOR them.
We informed the British commissioners, that we wished
to receive from them a statement of the views and objects
of Great Britain upon all the points, and expressed our readi-
ness to discuss them all. They inquired, whether, if they
should enter further upon discussion, and particularly on
the point respecting the Indian boundary, we could expect
that it would terminate by some provisional arrangement
which we could conclude subject to the ratification of our
government.
We said that as any arrangement to which we could agree
upon the subject must be without specific authority from
our government, it was not possible for us previous to dis-
cussion to decide whether an article on the subject could
be formed which would be mutually satisfactory, and to
which we should think ourselves, under our discretionary
powers, justified in acceding. [The difficulty that we felt we
stated in its full force from a principle of perfect candour.
They would perceive that nothing could be easier for us
than to admit that an article might be formed which we
would provisionally sign, and yet to break off upon the
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 81
details of any article which we might discuss.] ' That our
motive in asking the discussion was, that even if no arrange-
ment could be agreed to upon this point which was pre-
scribed to them as the sine qua non of a treaty, the govern-
ment of the United States might be possessed of the entire
and precise intentions of that of Great Britain upon it; and
the British government be fully apprised of all the objec-
tions on the part of the United States to any such arrange-
ment. That if unfortunately the present negotiation must
be broken off upon this preliminary, the two governments
might be aware of each other's views, and enabled to judge
of the expediency of a renewal of the negotiation.
The British commissioners objected that it would be wast-
ing time upon an unprofitable discussion, unless we could
give them the expectation that we should ultimately agree
to an article on this subject. They proposed an adjourn-
ment of an hour that we might have an opportunity of con-
sulting between ourselves, whether we could give them this
pledge of a possible assent on our part to their proposal.
We needed no time for such consultation, as there was no
hesitation upon the mind of any one of us with regard to it,
and we declined the adjournment. They then proposed to
suspend the conferences until they could consult their own
government on the state of things. They sent off a special
messenger the same evening, and we are now waiting for
the result.2
1 The words in brackets were struck out.
2 "Under these circumstances it would be satisfactory to us to be furnished with
instructions of the most specific kind how far His Majesty's Government would be
disposed to accept of a provisional article as to an Indian boundary, subject to [the]
very dubious contingency of its ratification by the President of the United States;
and also whether His Majesty's Government would wish the negotiations to pro-
ceed upon any and what points in the event of no provisional article of this kind
being agreed to, which latter contingency, unless specific instructions are received
82 THE WRITINGS OF [18x4
It was agreed upon their proposition that a report should
be drawn up of the proceedings at these two meetings, by-
each party, and that we should meet the next day to com-
pare and collate them together, and from the two form a
final protocol agreed to on both sides. The paper marked
(C) 1 is a copy of the report thus drawn up on our part.
We inclose it to make known to you the passages, to the
introduction of which the British commissioners at this third
meeting objected. Their objections to some of the passages
were that they appeared rather to be argumentative, and
that the object of the protocol was to contain a mere state-
ment of facts. But they also objected to the insertion of
the fact, that they had declared the conferences suspended,
until they could obtain further instructions from their
government. Such was nevertheless the fact, and the re-
turn of their messenger may perhaps disclose the motive of
their reluctance to its appearing on the record.
We have the honor, etc.
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, August 16, 1814.
American news presses upon us with an interest still in-
creasing and which will soon be but too powerful. It is im-
possible that the summer should pass over without bringing
intelligence which will make our hearts ache; though I hope
and trust that nothing will or can happen that will break the
from the United States, appear to us by no means unlikely to happen." British
Commissioners to Lord Castlereagh, August 9, 18 14. Ms. See also Goulburn to Earl
Bathurst, August 9, 1814, in Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, Correspondence
and Memoranda, IX. 178. Castlereagh gave further instructions on August 14.
They are in Letters and Despatches of Lord Castlereagh, X. 86.
1 Printed in American State Papers, Foreign Relations, III. 708.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 83
spirit of our nation. We are but just now receiving the ac-
counts of the arrival of the reinforcements sent out in the
spring. Those of their operations must soon follow. In
Canada we have done nothing, while the superiority of force
was unquestionably on our side! What are we to expect
when an overwhelming superiority will be on that of the
enemy? We are catching at the straws of such trifles as the
affairs of Sandy Creek and Niagara, while the blow hangs
over us which we are told is to lay us prostrate at the mercy
of our foe. God forbid! But either that, or a latent energy
must be brought forth, of which we have as yet manifested
no sign.
We had last Friday all the Americans in the city to dine
with us. We sat down to table twenty-two. The next
morning Captain Angus and Mr. Connell left the town.
The Captain returns to his ship, which is to sail on the 25th
inst. Connell could not obtain passage in her, nor any other
person, but those expressly named, or charged with dis-
patches. The morning they went away, Captain Angus said
to Mr. Shaler, "Well, I am going home and what shall I
say? The people will all be crowding about me for news —
what shall I tell them?" Says Shaler, tell them that the
day before you left Ghent you dined with the commissioners
and all the Americans in the place, and that at the dinner
Mr. A[dams] gave for a toast "Lawrence's last words."
Why, says Angus, "Do you think he meant anything by
it?" "Tell them the fact," says Shaler, "and leave them
to judge of that." It is true that Mr. A. did give the toast,
but it is very strange that Shaler should have noticed and
recollected it! If he had meant anything, was it not much
more probable that it would have been instantly felt by
Captain Angus, himself a naval officer, than by a non-
combatant landsman? Angus did however finally sus-
84 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
pect that Mr. A. meant something. What is your opin-
ion? . . .
The ministerial English papers still tell us we are not to
have peace. An expedition said to be of 14,000 men is fitting
out, to sail by the first of September, bound to America.
Lord Hill * has the command of it, and at a dinner last week
promised the company that he would humble the Yankees,
and reduce them immediately to submission. . . .
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 137. [James Monroe]
Ghent, 17 August, 18 14.
Sir:
I have had the honor of receiving the duplicate of your
favor of 2 May, 18 14, and the original of that of 23 June,
the former purporting to inclose a copy of a proclamation of
Admiral Cochrane declaring the whole American coast to
be in a state of blockade. But the copy of the proclamation
was not inclosed. I have transmitted to Mr. Harris a copy
of the letter, together with one of the proclamation as it
appeared in the American newspapers, requesting him to
present the subject to the attention of the Russian govern-
ment. Mr. Harris arrived at St. Petersburg on the 17th
of July.
It is no pleasing part of my duty to state to you my con-
viction that neither this nor any other remonstrance against
the maritime outrages of Great Britain will find, or be able
to rouse, either in Russia, or in any other European state, a
spirit of resistance against the British pretensions or prac-
1 Rowland Hill, first Viscount Hill (1772-1842).
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 85
tices. All the great powers of Europe are dependent upon
the good will of the British government for the attainment
of objects more important in their estimation than any thing
connected with the maritime questions. They have all
tacitly, if not formally, stipulated not to bring any of those
questions into the discussions at the Congress of Vienna
which is to be held in October, ultimately to settle the new
balance of Europe. Mr. Gallatin had an audience of the
Emperor Alexander at London, an account of which will be
transmitted to you, and from which you will perceive that,
although regretting the disregard unequivocally manifested
by the British government to his repeated offers of media-
tion, and to his wishes for peace between Great Britain and
the United States, he candidly expressed his intention to
take no further active part in urging the settlement of their
differences. Sweden is not only destitute of all means of
asserting any maritime or neutral rights against the preten-
sions of Britain, but it is by the assistance of Britain alone
that she can expect to accomplish the conquest of Norway.
Holland is so far from possessing the means even of remon-
strating against the British maritime code, that her mer-
chants without a murmur submit to purchase from the
British Ambassador at the Hague a license to send a ship to
any of their own colonies. Such is the ordinance prescribed
to them by their own sovereign prince, and with which they
think it no derogation to their national honor and independ-
ence to comply. France and Spain are yet equally dependent
upon the will of England for their intercourse with their
colonies; none of those either of France or Holland have been
restored to them. There is even no immediate prospect of
their restoration. In the arrangements with Holland the
British government has explicitly avowed the policy of load-
ing the trade of the Dutch to their colonies with burthens
86 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
equal to those under which the English are obliged to carry
on the same commerce. It is probable that this principle,
of suffering no other nation to carry on commerce less bur-
thened with duties and charges than their own, will hence-
forth be an essential feature of the English policy, and I
consider it as one of their motives for continuing the war
with us upon which they are undoubtedly determined.
The dispatches from you to the joint mission which I had
been so long and so anxiously expecting, were received by
us on the day of our first conference with the British com-
missioners.1 They were of the utmost importance, inasmuch
as without them it would have been impossible for us to
proceed one step in the negotiation upon the points on which
the war originated. But you will see by our dispatches that
the British commissioners at the first conference formally
and in the most peremptory manner placed the war and the
negotiation upon a ground entirely new. They appeared
to mention the subject of impressment, with which they
connected their doctrine of unalienable allegiance, as a point
which they supposed we should be desirous of discussing,
but which their government would willingly pass over in
silence. They spoke of the fisheries also, rather to warn us
that we should want an article to secure us in the continuance
of the liberties we had enjoyed by the stipulations in the
treaties of 1782 and 1783, than to signify that they had any
wish to bring the subject into discussion. But from the first
moment they declared that the including of the Indians in
the peace, and the settling of an Indian boundary line, was
made by the British government a sine qua non to the con-
clusion of a treaty; and they attempted at the very first
meeting to entangle us in the alternative of conceding the
principle or of breaking off the negotiation. At the second,
1 August 8.
i8i41 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 87
after they were informed that we had no instructions au-
thorizing us to treat with them on this point, they urged us
to the admission that we might agree to an article conceding
the principle, if they would open the discussion, and upon
our declining to make any such engagement, they instantly
proposed a suspension of the conferences until they should
consult their government.
So far as the intentions of the British government can be
collected from the newspapers it would appear that they
calculate upon an immediate rupture of this negotiation.1
They have been taking up more than one hundred transports
for the conveyance of troops, and are stated to want more.
This object is a particular expedition, probably against
New Orleans, to be commanded by Lord Hill. They are to
be ready to sail from Cork on the first of September, and
their commander at a late dinner informed his table com-
panions that he was going to humble the Yankees, and re-
duce them immediately to terms of peace glorious to Great
Britain.
1 This was also Gallatin's view. James Gallatin, Diary, 29. "But upon the
practicability of prosecuting the negotiation with any utility in the present im-
perfect state of the instructions of which the American negotiators avow them-
selves to be in possession, the whole seems to turn upon the point you have so
properly suggested: viz. whether the Commissioners will or will not take upon
themselves to sign a provisional agreement upon the points on which they have no
instruction. If they decline this, the British government sees no advantage in
prosecuting the discussions further, until the American negotiators shall have re-
ceived instructions upon these points. If on the contrary upon a candid explana-
tion of the principles upon which Great Britain is prepared to treat on these sub-
jects, they are willing upon their own responsibility to sign a provisional agree-
ment, the negotiation may proceed, and the treaty when concluded may be sent
with the British ratification to America, to be at once exchanged, if the American
government shall think fit to confirm the act of their Commissioners. The British
government cannot better evince their cordial desire for peace than by placing the
negotiation upon this issue." Castlereagh to the British Commissioners, August 14,
1814.
88 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
The Sovereign Prince of the Netherlands has provision-
ally taken possession of the Belgic provinces, and by a proc-
lamation issued at Bruxelles has signified to the people of
this country that they are ultimately to be united with
Holland under his government. In this arrangement the
inclinations of the people have been as little consulted as in
the transfer of Norway to Sweden. There is no destination
which could be given to the inhabitants of Belgium to which
they would be so averse as that of being annexed to Holland.
France is also said to be strongly dissatisfied with this event,
and France begins to show symptoms of recovering her
voice in the general affairs of Europe. There are many
rumors of approaching war which, if not altogether un-
founded, will probably be dispelled by the negotiations at
the Congress of Vienna. The interest of all the European
powers except France is peace; and although France has a
strong interest and a stronger passion for an immediate re-
newal of the Continental war, her fear of England with the
undoubted bias of the present government will at least for
some time control the spirit of the nation and especially of
the army.
I am etc.
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, August 19, 1814.
. . . Since I wrote you last we have neither seen nor
heard from the British commissioners. After the second
conference they sent off a messenger to London, to inquire
of their government whether they should have anything
more to say to us. Their messenger returned the evening
before last, but we have not a word from them yet. The
conferences have now been ten days suspended, and I may
l8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 89
say to you it is by no means clear that they will be renewed.
On our part we have never occasioned or asked the delay of
an hour. Between the first and the second conference we
received dispatches from the Secretary of State, which
Mr. Gallatin, Mr. Hughes and myself sat up until one the
next morning to decypher. This encroached something upon
my hour of retirement, which is now regularly at 9 o'clock.
Hitherto we have had no evenings. We dine all together at
four, and sit usually at table until six. We then disperse to
our several amusements and avocations. Mine is a solitary
walk of two or three hours — solitary, because I find none of
the other gentlemen disposed to join me in it, particularly
at that hour. They frequent the coffee houses, the Reading
Rooms, and the billiard tables. Between eight and nine I
return from my walk, and immediately betake myself to bed.
I rise usually about five in the morning, and from that time
until dinner am closely engaged in writing or in other busi-
ness. We breakfast separately, each in his own chamber,
and meet almost every day for an hour or two between
breakfast and dinner. We are not troublesome to one an-
other, and if our landlord was not quite so anxious as he is
to fatten upon us too fast, we should live with as much satis-
faction as I believe would be possible at Bachelor's Hall.
We pay him a very liberal and generous price; but he was
to furnish the house completely and elegantly, which he
has not done; and as for the boarding part we give him a
fixed price by the head and the day; he requires a scolding
once or twice a week to make him provide us with tolerable
fare.
If, as it would appear by the preparations for the Man
Mountain (Lord Hill)'s expedition, the British government
mean to break us up before the first of September, our resi-
dence here will not extend beyond the month for which we
9o THE WRITINGS OF [1814
positively took the house, and which has already more than
half elapsed; but as the autumn advances and the nights
lengthen if we are to stay here we shall find changes in our
condition, which to me particularly will be no improvement
of it. I find myself already compelled to abridge my walk
after dinner, and shall soon be obliged to give it up al-
together. I hope we shall have no winter evenings to dis-
pose of . . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, August 23, 1814.
We had last Friday, after my letter of that day to you was
closed, a conference with the British commissioners at their
request, which will probably be the last. Lord Castlereagh
himself had arrived here the night before, and left this place
on his way to Bruxelles the day after. We did not see him,1
but at the conference it is scarcely a figure of speech to say
that we felt him. Our opponents were not only charged
fourfold with obnoxious substance, they threw off much of
the suavity of form which they had observed before.2 After
they had opened upon us their new battery from England, and
answered some questions put on our part, I told them, and
we all agreed on our side that our proceedings were now suffi-
ciently matured for us to be ready to receive from them a
written communication. They promised it to us without
1 "During my stay of the greater part of two days at Ghent I did not see any
of the American Commissioners. They did not call upon or desire to see me, and
I thought my originating an interview would be considered objectionable and
awkward by our own Commissioners." Castlereagh to the Earl of Liverpool, Au-
gust 28, 1814. Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 192. Yet James Gal-
latin reports that Castlereagh saw Gallatin, and the son was present at the inter-
view. Diary, 30.
2 See Gallatin to Monroe, August 20, 1814, in Adams, Writings of Gallatin, I. 637.
l8l4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 91
delay, and sent it the next morning.1 We shall send our
answer in a day or two, and I believe we shall need to wait
no longer than for their reply. That may be sent to us in
an hour, or it may be delayed a week; the difference of which
will depend upon its length or its laconism. Everything
here has proceeded precisely as I had expected. It is not
possible that we should be detained beyond the last of this
month, unless it be for the arrangement of our papers.
Messrs. Bayard, Clay and Gallatin expect to return this
autumn to America. But their project now is to order the
Neptune round to Cherburg, Brest, or L'Orient; and to go
there by land to embark. They will thus have the oppor-
tunity of visiting Paris again. They suppose that by this
arrangement they may yet sail as early as the first of Octo-
ber; but it is much more likely they will not get away before
the first of November. Then an American coast in Decem-
ber will be very disagreeable. Some of them will run a great
risk of passing another winter in Europe.
Messrs. Delprat and Todd arrived here together on Satur-
day. Todd was to have gone in the John Adams, but on
reaching this city he received a letter from his mother
[Mrs. Madison], urging him at all events not to stay longer
in Europe than Mr. Gallatin. Todd's argument is that in
compliance with his mother's request, he must stay in
Europe as long as Mr. Gallatin, so he has postponed his
voyage until the departure of the Neptune, and talks of
1 "We accordingly made on this subject also [a revision of the frontier] an
explicit communication to the American plenipotentiaries at a conference which
took place on the 19th inst., at which the American plenipotentiaries confined
themselves to requiring from us mere explanations upon some incidental points
connected with the subject of our verbal communications to them. In conformity
with a wish expressed by them to receive a written statement on the subject we
addressed to them the note of which a copy is inclosed." British Commissioners to
Lord Castlereagh, August 26, 1814. Ms. The note was dated August 19.
92 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
returning immediately to Paris. He has a very important
motive to this step, for an oculist there has promised him,
if he will put himself for a few weeks under his hands, he
will make him look straight. He had also after all the mis-
fortune to fail of being presented. Mr. Crawford had
an audience, and delivered his credentials last Tuesday.
Todd was to have been presented at the same time, but the
Introducteur des Ambassadeurs forgot to send him notice in
time, so that he was disappointed.
Colonel Milligan has just returned from an excursion of
two days with Mr. Hughes to Antwerp. The Colonel is
going upon a visit to his relations in Scotland, with the in-
tention however of returning wherever the Neptune may
be in time to go by her. This place continues to be the
thoroughfare of all the Americans in Europe. They come and
look at us, and are off in such rapid succession that sometimes
I hear nothing of them until they are gone. Mr. Joseph
Russell departs this day for Paris. He desires me to re-
member him with his most particular respects to you.
We are not confined exclusively to visitors from our
country. Last Friday our old friend de Cabre came and
spent the evening with us. He is going as Secretary of the
French legation to Copenhagen, and came round by this
city, twelve leagues out of his way, merely for the pleasure
of seeing us, and especially his intimate friend Hughes.
If besides that he came to reconnoitre, we know nothing of
it. I put him one or two prying questions, but he was as
ignorant as a simpleton. He knew nothing. . . -1
1 On the 23d, the Commissioners met at a dinner given by the Intendant of the
city, and Goulburn reported on the same day: "It is evident from their conversa-
tion that they do not mean to continue the negotiations at present. Mr. Clay,
whom I sat next to at dinner, gave me clearly to understand that they had de-
cided upon a reference to America for instructions, and that they conceived our
propositions equivalent to a demand for the cession of Boston or New York; and
[8i4J JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 93
ANSWER TO THE BRITISH COMMISSIONERS x
[August 24, 1814.]
The undersigned Ministers plenipotentiary and extraor-
dinary from the United States of America have given to the
official note which they have had the honor of receiving
after dinner Mr. Bayard took me aside and requested that I would permit him to
have a little private and confidential conversation. Upon my expressing my readi-
ness to hear whatever he might like to say to me, he began a very long speech by
saying that the present negotiation could not end in peace, and that he was de-
sirous of privately stating (before we separated) what Great Britain did not appear
to understand, viz. that by proposing terms like those which had been offered we
were not only ruining all prospects of peace, but were sacrificing the party of which
he was a member to their political adversaries. He went into a long discussion upon
the views and objects of the several parties in America, the grounds upon which
they had hitherto proceeded, and the effect which a hostile or conciliatory disposi-
tion on our part might have upon them. He inculcated how much it was for our
interest to support the Federalists, and that to make peace was the only method of
supporting them effectually; that we had nothing to fear for Canada if peace were
made, be the terms what they might; that there would have been no difficulty
about allegiance, impressment, etc.; but that our present demands were what
America never could or would accede to. This was the general tenor of his conversa-
tion, to which I did not think it necessary to make much reply, and which I only
mention to you in order to let you know at the earliest moment that the negotia-
tion is not likely now to continue." Goulburn to Earl Bathurst, August 23, 18 14.
Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 190. Castlereagh found a difficulty in
making concessions "under present circumstances upon the chance of such a body
containing all the varieties of American party agreeing amongst themselves to any
measure of responsibility, and further, upon the imperfect security that if they did
so it would be approved at home." To the Earl of Liverpool, August 28, 1814. lb.,
193.
1 A draft by Adams. For the paper as sent see American State Papers, Foreign
Relations, III. 711. This draft was considered on August 21. "I found, as
usual, that the draft was not satisfactory to my colleagues. On the general view
of the subject we are unanimous, but in my exposition of it, one objects to the form
and another to the substance of almost every paragraph. Mr. Gallatin is for strik-
ing out any expression that may be offensive to the feelings of the adverse party.
Mr. Clay is displeased with figurative language, which he thinks improper for a
94 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
from His Britannic Majesty's Commissioners, the deliberate
attention which the importance of the contents required,
and have now that of transmitting to them their answer on
the several points to which it refers.
They would present to the consideration of the British
Commissioners that in Lord Castlereagh's letter to the
American Secretary of State, dated on the 4th of November
last, and proposing the present negotiation, his Lordship
pledges the faith of the British government, that they were
"willing to enter into discussion with the government of
America, for the conciliatory adjustment of the differences
subsisting between the States, with an earnest desire on their
part to bring them to a favorable issue, upon principles of
perfect reciprocity not inconsistent with the established
maxims of public law, and with the maritime rights of the
British empire."
It will doubtless be within the recollection of His Britannic
Majesty's Commissioners, that at the first conference which
the undersigned had the honor of holding with them they
gave on the part of their government to the undersigned
the most explicit assurances that no events which have oc-
curred since the first proposal for this negotiation, had in
any manner varied either the disposition and desire of the
British government that it might terminate in a peace
state paper. Mr. Russell, agreeing in the objections of the two other gentlemen,
will be further for amending the construction of every sentence; and Mr. Bayard,
even when agreeing to say precisely the same thing, chooses to say it only in his
own language. It was considered by all the gentlemen that what I had written was
too long, and with too much argument about the Indians." On the 23d "about
one-half of my draft was agreed to be struck out;" and on the 24th, after hours of
"sifting, erasing, patching, and amending, until we were all wearied, though none
of us was yet satisfied with amendment," Adams believed his matter made one-
fifth of the accepted paper, and almost all he had written on the law of nations as
applied to the Indians and European settlements in America had been omitted.
Adams, Memoirs, August 21-24, 1814.
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 95
honorable to both parties, or the terms upon which they
would be willing to conclude it.
These remarks the undersigned trust will suffice to relieve
the British government from the surprise which their Com-
missioners have been instructed to express that the American
government had not provided the undersigned with in-
structions, authorizing them to treat with British commis-
sioners for the interests or pretensions of Indians situated
within the boundaries of the United States.
The undersigned might justly ask in what established
maxim of public law the British government have found the
right of one civilized nation to interfere with the concerns
of the Indians included within the territories of another?
If Great Britain considers the Indians as her subjects, what
established maxim of public law will warrant her in extend-
ing her claim to their allegiance to tribes inhabiting the
territory of the United States? If she considers them as
independent nations, where is her authority to treat for
them, or to bind them by her engagements? The Com-
missioners of His Britannic Majesty have produced to the
undersigned their full powers to treat on the part of Great
Britain. But they have not yet done them the honor to
communicate to them their Indian full powers.
The undersigned are persuaded that they will not be con-
tradicted in the assertion that no maxim of public law has
hitherto been more universally established among the powers
of Europe, possessing territories in America; and particularly
none to which Great Britain has more uniformly and inflexibly
adhered, than that of suffering no interposition of a foreign
power, in the relations between the sovereign of the terri-
tory and the Indians situated upon it.
The proposition to constitute the Indian tribes into
neutral and independent nations to serve as a barrier be-
96 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
tween the dominions of two European powers is not in-
deed without example. It was proposed by France in the
abortive negotiation which preceded the peace of 1763,
and rejected by an administration to which the British
nation is accustomed to look back with pride and ven-
eration.
The undersigned deem it proper further to observe that
independent of the insuperable objections which may render
such a proposition inadmissible on the part of the United
States, they could not assent to it without injustice toward
the Indians themselves. In precluding perpetually the
Indians from the right of selling their lands, they would
deprive them of a privilege of the highest importance and
advantage to them. It cannot be unknown to the British
government that the principal if not the only value of lands
to the Indian state of society is their property as hunting
grounds. That in the unavoidable, and surely not to be
regretted, progress of a population increasing with unex-
ampled rapidity, and of the civilized settlements conse-
quent upon it, the mere approximation of cultivated fields,
of villages and of cities, necessarily diminishes and by de-
grees annihilates the only quality of the adjoining deserts,
which makes them subject of Indian occupancy. The
unequivocal interest of the Indians there is to cede, for a
valuable consideration the remnant of that right, which
from the nature of things he must shortly cease to enjoy;
to retire from the forest which has already been deserted
by his prey, [into remote recesses of the wilderness where] *
and to yield for a liberal compensation to the hand of tillage
the soil which can no longer yield to him, either the pleasures,
the profits, or the substance of the chase. Such a liberal
1 These words appear to have been added, but break the continuity of the sen-
tence.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 97
compensation is provided for them by the system of legisla-
tion adopted by the United States in their relations with all
the Indian tribes within their territories. Under this system,
the undersigned have already had the honor of informing the
British Commissioners, that an uninterrupted peace had
subsisted between the people of the United States and all
the Indian tribes within their limits, for a longer period of
time than ever had been known since the first settlement of
North America. Nor would that peace have been inter-
rupted to this day, had not the British government drawn
some of the Indians, and compelled others, to take their
side in the war. With those Indians the United States, as
the undersigned have already declared, have neither in-
terest nor inclination to continue the war. They have
nothing to ask of them but peace. Commissioners on the
part of the United States have been appointed to conclude
it with them, and the pacification may before this have been
accomplished. To a provisional article, similar to what has
been stipulated in former treaties, engaging that the Indians
within the territories of either party shall be restrained from
committing hostilities against the citizens, subjects, domin-
ions, or Indians of the other, the undersigned might assent,
subject to the ratification of their government, as proposed
by the British Commissioners, but under the color of giving
to perhaps 20,000 Indians, and the tribes for which this
provision is proposed to be made cannot much exceed that
number, the rights of sovereignty, attributable only to
civilized nations, and a boundary not asked or consented to
by themselves, to surrender both the rights of sovereignty
and of soil, over nearly one-third of the territorial dominions
of the United States, the undersigned are so far from being
instructed or authorized by their government, that they
assure the British Commissioners it will never be conceded
9g THE WRITINGS OF [1814
by the United States, so long as they are in a condition to
contest the last badge of submission to a conqueror.
The undersigned may be permitted further to suggest in
reference to the motive assigned by the British government
for this proposal of a permanent Indian boundary, that
nothing could be so ill-adapted to the purpose which it would
be intended to accomplish. To place a number of wandering
Indian hunters, comparatively so small and insignificant, in
a state of nominal independence, on the borders of a free
and civilized nation, chiefly of British descent, whose settle-
ments must correspond with their increasing numbers, and
whose numbers must increase in proportions unknown be-
fore in human annals, would be not only to expose both the
parties to those incessant and fatal collisions, to which the
unsettled relations between men in the civilized and the
savage state must always be liable, but it must ultimately
be to produce the total destruction of that party which such
a project professes to protect. Were it possible for Great
Britain at this moment to extort from the United States a
concession so pernicious and so degrading, can she imagine
that the growing multitudes of the American people would
long endure the shackles which the humiliating condition
would impose upon them? Can she believe that the swarm-
ing myriads of her own children, in the process of converting
the western wilderness to a powerful empire, could long be
cramped or arrested by a treaty stipulation confining whole
pons of territory to a few scattered hordes of savages,
whose numbers to the end of ages would not amount to the
I illation of one considerable city? Were the boundary
to remain even inviolable on the part of the United States,
it is neither in the right nor in the power of Great Britain
to secure it from transgression by the Indians themselves.
Incessant wars between the Indians and the borderers would
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 99
be the inevitable result, and of these wars all former ex-
perience and all rational forecast concur to prove that cruel
and inhuman as their operations would be to the American
settlers, they could only terminate in the total destruction
of their savage foes.
As little are the undersigned instructed or empowered to
accede to the propositions of the British government in re-
lation to the military command of the western lakes. If
they have found the proposal of an Indian boundary
wholly incompatible with every established maxim of public
law, they are no less at a loss to discover by what rule of
perfect reciprocity the United States can be required to
renounce their equal right of maintaining a naval force upon
those lakes, and of fortifying their own shores, while Great
Britain reserves exclusively the corresponding rights to
herself. That in point of military preparation, the British
possessions in North America ever have been, or in any time
of peace are ever likely to be in a condition to be termed
with propriety the weaker power in comparison with the
United States, the undersigned believe to be incorrect in
point of fact. In regard to the fortification of the shore, and
to the forces actually kept on foot upon those frontiers, they
believe the superiority to have always been, and on the re-
turn of peace again likely to be on the side of Great Britain.
If the relative strength of the parties were a substantial
ground for requiring that the strongest should dismantle the
forts upon her shores, strike forever her military flag upon
the lakes, and lay her whole frontier bare and defenceless in
the presence of her armed and fortified neighbor, that pro-
posal should have come in due consistency with the fact,
not from Great Britain to the United States, but from the
United States to Great Britain. The undersigned may safely
appeal to the bosoms of His Britannic Majesty's Commis-
IOO THE WRITINGS OF [18x4
sioners for the feelings with which not only in regard to the
interests, but to the honor of their nation, they would have
received such a proposal.
The undersigned further perceive that under the alleged
purpose of opening a direct communication between two of
the British provinces in America, the British government
aire a cession of territory forming a part of one of the
states of the American union, and that without purpose
specifically alleged, they propose to draw the future bound-
ary line westward, not like the present boundary from the
! ike of the Woods, but from Lake Superior. It must be
fectly immaterial to the United States whether the object
of the British government in demanding the dismemberment
of the United States is to acquire territory as such, or for
purposes less liable in the eyes of the world to be ascribed to
the rapacity of ambition.1 Whatever the motive may be,
and with whatever consistency views of conquest may be
disclaimed, while demanding a cession of territory more ex-
asive than the whole island of Great Britain, the duty
marked out for the undersigned is the same. They have no
authority to cede one inch of the territory of the United
ites, and to no stipulation to that effect will they subscribe.
The undersigned deem it proper here to notice an in-
timation apparently held out towards the close of the note
of the British Commissioners as an amicable warning to
themselves. They are informed that unless they will, with-
out even reierring to their government, sign a provisional
article on a point concerning which they had expressly de-
clared they were not instructed, and to which they trust
they have proved it was impossible they should be impowered
to accede, the British government "cannot be precluded by
Sec Russell to Clay, October 15, 1815, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XLIV.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 101
anything that has passed from varying the terms at present
proposed, in such a manner as the state of the war at the
time of resuming the conferences may in their judgment
render advisable." The undersigned are well aware that
the British government cannot be precluded from varying
the terms proposed by themselves, whenever they think
proper; but they remind the British Commissioners that at
the very second day of their meetings with the undersigned,
they themselves found it advisable not to proceed in the
conferences, until they should have recurred for fresh in-
structions to their own government. That a reference of
plenipotentiaries to their government upon points which
could not have been foreseen, and in all respects of the most
extraordinary complexion, will justly warrant the other
party in varying the terms proposed by herself, the under-
signed can by no means admit. They believe it to be as
contrary to the usage of pacific negotiation as it is to the
spirit and purpose of peace. If by this admonition the
British government intended to disclose the suspicion that
the undersigned were seeking pretexts for delay, they trust
that the explicit nature of the present communication will
remove every such impression. If the object was to operate
upon the fears of the undersigned, to induce them by a
menace to sign in violation of their instructions the provi-
sional disgrace of their country, they flatter themselves the
British government will not be surprised to find them un-
prepared to purchase even the present moderation of Great
Britain by treachery to their liberty and their country.
It is well known to Great Britain and to the world that
the present war owed neither its origin nor its continuance to
any desire of conquest on the part of the United States;
that on the contrary its causes were, etc.1
1 The Ms. ends thus abruptly. The British Commissioners drew up a proposed
io2 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, August 26, 1814.
. These embarrassments [irregularities in post office],
however, will not be much longer troublesome to either
us. There is no prospect, I might almost say, no possi-
bility, that I should be here to receive your answer to
reply to the American note of August 24, and sent it to Castlereagh. It is printed
in Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 194. Castlereagh, however, be-
lieved the reply to be made of such importance that it should be made under the
instructions of the Cabinet, and sent the papers to the Earl of Liverpool, who wrote
to the Duke of Wellington, September 2: "We had prepared an answer to the note
of the American Commissioners before we received Castlereagh's letter, and very
much in the spirit of the memorandum which he sent us. Copies of these papers
shall be transmitted to you in a few days. Our Commissioners had certainly taken
an erroneous view of the line to be adopted. It is very material to throw the rup-
ture of the negotiation, if it is to take place, upon the Americans, and not to allow
them to say that we have brought forward points as ultimate which were only
brought forward for discussion, and at the desire of the American Commissioners
themselves.
"The American note is a most impudent one, and, as to all its reasoning, capable
of an irresistible answer, which, if it should be necessary to publish, will, I am per-
suaded, have its proper effect in America." lb., 212.
Liverpool also wrote to Castlereagh on the same date: "If the negotiation had
been allowed to break off upon the two notes already presented, or upon such an
answer as they were disposed to return, I am satisfied the war would have become
quite popular in America. I was the more surprised at this circumstance as I
r read a paper more easy to answer, as to its reasonings, than the paper of the
American Commissioners. . . . We have avoided as much as possible com-
mitting ourselves on anything which is likely to create embarrassment hereafter;
reasoning on the subject of the avowed intentions of the American govern-
d conquer and annex Canada can hardly fail to make a considerable im-
^ion on the reasonable people in the United States.
\\<- cannot expect that the negotiation will proceed at present, but I think it
not unlikely, after our note has been delivered in, that the American Commis-
lioners will propose to refer the subject to their government. In that case the nego-
m may be adjourned till the answer is received, and we shall know the result
^■11 before it can be resumed.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 103
this letter, unless detained by accident or some other cause
not to be foreseen. I fully expect that the negotiation here
will be terminated before the first of next month. I believe
it to be substantially terminated already. . . .
With the house itself we are now so well satisfied that we
should certainly keep it for another month if we had any
prospect of staying so long here. Our landlord now gives
us tolerable satisfaction, and we continue to harmonize per-
fectly well with one another. This harmony most happily ex-
tends to our public concerns no less than to our private re-
lations. We have had much and free deliberation; but with
regard to the great principles of our proceedings have been
constantly unanimous. Yesterday we sent our answer to
the British note, and shall, as we expect, have nothing more
to write to our adverse party on the substance of our busi-
ness. The forms of parting will be all that remains after
their reply. Of this, however, I cannot speak positively
until their reply comes. We might have had that now, for
it might be a card pour prendre conge. But as they could not
well send us that until after the dinner to which they have
invited us tomorrow, they may perhaps be waiting to get
that over. As however we have given them some reasoning
to dispose of, they may perhaps furnish us with some of the
same commodity in return. In that case we shall find it
necessary to rejoin and may be kept here a week longer.
From what has already passed it is impossible that the
negotiation should succeed. . . .
We have no news from America of any importance since
the taking of Fort Erie and the affair at Niagara. That was
"If our commander does his duty, I am persuaded we shall have acquired by our
arms every point on the Canadian frontier which we ought to insist on keeping."
The Cabinet draft of a reply to the American Commissioners, dated September I,
is in Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 245.
i 4 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
a brilliant action upon our side, but, as usual, not followed
up by any thing else. When our landsmen have struck one
blow, they seem to think they have conquered the
rid, and have nothing left to do but to slumber upon their
laurels. The English accounts from Halifax are to I Au-
- nothing worth telling. Could I but hope the same for
next six months, how many heart-aches I should be
spared! It is a painful process that I am going through;
• it is some consolation that the part I am doomed to
perform in the prolongation of this tragedy has never re-
quired an instant of hesitation with respect to the path
pointed out by my duty, and that in this respect there has
I been a shadow of difference of opinion between any one
of my colleagues and me. . . .
TO WILLIAM HARRIS CRAWFORD
Ghent, 29 August, 18 14.
Dear Sir:
I scarcely know how to apologize to you for having yet
to reply to your favor of 12 July, which was received by me
on the 1 6th. The simple fact has been that being without
the assistance of a secretary, and having to dispatch by the
John Adams the return of nearly a. year's correspondence
from our own country, I postponed from day to day the
reply due to you, merely because it could at any day be
transmitted, until several weeks have elapsed leaving the
duty still to be performed.
I have been the less scrupulous in performing it sooner,
because I have known that some of our colleagues were more
punctual, and particularly that our excellent friend Mr. Clay
had kept \<>u well informed of the progress of our negotia-
ti< >n. The result has been such as was to be expected.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 105
It is natural we should feel, and we do all feel, a deep dis-
appointment at the failure of this attempt to restore to our
country the blessings of peace; especially as by changing the
grounds upon which the war is to be continued, Great
Britain has opened to us the alternative of a long, expensive,
sanguinary war, or of submission to disgraceful conditions
and sacrifices little short of independence itself. It is the
crisis which must try the temper of our country. If the
dangers which now hang over our heads should intimidate
our people into the spirit of concession, if the temper of com-
pounding for sacrifices should manifest itself in any strength
there will be nothing left us worth defending. But if our
countrymen are not all bastards, if there is a drop of the
blood flowing in their veins that carried their fathers through
the Revolutionary war, the prolongation of hostilities will
only be to secure ultimately to us a more glorious triumph.
I have not so ill opinion of them as to believe they will suc-
cumb immediately in the struggle before them; but I wish
the real statesmen among us may form, what I fear few of
them have yet formed, a true estimate of our condition. I
wish them to look all our dangers in the face and to their
full extent. The rupture of this negotiation not only frus-
trates all hope of peace for the present year, but at least also
for the next. All the present preparations in England are
calculated for operation the next campaign. The forces
they have sent out already, and those they are about to dis-
patch are so large, and composed of such troops that they
must in the first instance make powerful impressions and
obtain brilliant successes. The actual state of things both
in Europe and America, as well as the experience of our
former war, prove this to as full demonstration as if the
official accounts were already published in the London
Gazette. The spirit that is prepared for disaster is least
lo6 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
likely to be broken down by it when it comes. We must not
Hatter ourselves with delusive estimates of our dangers, and
we must expect to pass through the career of British triumph
and exultation at our calamities, before we can lead them
to the result that they bring our enemy no nearer to his
object than his defeats.
Mr. Russell and myself have received an instruction of the
same tenor from the Secretary of State, to make a repre-
sentation against Cochrane's proclamation of blockade of
25 April last. I suppose you must have received a similar
instruction. It would be gratifying and perhaps useful for
us to know, whether this is the case; and, if so, whether you
have done anything under the instruction; and generally
what are the views of this subject entertained at the present
court of France.
You are informed that we have rejected the preliminary
sine qua non to which the adverse party has adhered. We
are only waiting for their official reply and shall not remain
here beyond a week or ten days. I am etc.1
1 " I am inclined to think that the calm which now prevails in Europe will be of
short duration. The existence of combustible materials has never been so general
as at the present moment. The result of the conferences at Vienna is more likely
indie than to extinguish the smothered flame. The deranged state of the finan-
ces of all the continental powers calls for peace, but the impulse which the turbu-
lent spirits of these nations have received with the last two years will strongly im-
< to war. The different pretensions of the parties to the territory recovered
joint efforts, from France and in Italy, will not be easily reconciled. The
. isional governments established in the most of those countries will, by the
time that the Congress at Vienna shall have finished its labors, have greatly con-
tributed to the discontents already existing there. Perhaps the best security for
the : f Europe will be found in the disaffection of the French troops, and the
■ ral apprehension or rather horror, of further revolutions. I believe the Em-
l>cror Napoleon is much more popular now, in France, than he has been for several
The total extinction of the liberty of the press, which still continues to
1, will prevent the monarch from knowing or even suspecting, the increasing
ll.irity ..f the late occupant of his throne." Crawford to John Quincy Adams,
July 1 :. 1^1 ) Mb.
i8i4i JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 107
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, August 30, 1814.
. . I should therefore from the commencement of
the ensuing month write you only once a week, if I had the
prospect of remaining here; but we shall all have evacuated
this place by the 15th. We are in hourly expectation of re-
ceiving the reply of the British plenipotentiaries to our notes
in answer to them, and we already know that it will con-
tain a refusal to continue the negotiation.1 I have not yet
ultimately fixed either the manner of my return to St. Peters-
burg, whether by land or by water, or if by land the road
by which I shall travel. ... If I lengthen the journey
upon my return, it will assuredly not be for amusement, or
to gratify my personal curiosity. . . .
We dined last Saturday 2 with the British plenipoten-
tiaries, and were entertained as courteously as was to be
expected. There was no other company but ourselves.
Mrs. Goulburn was the only lady present, and was agreeable;
1 " We have some days since [on the 31st] informed the Americans that we had
deemed it necessary to refer our answer to the government previous to sending it
to them; and although they pressed for the earliest possible answer, yet they had
nothing to say to this communication. Some one or other of them have called
daily since to know if we had got an answer. Indeed, their only anxiety appears
to get back to America. Whenever we meet them they always enter into unofficial
discussions, much of the same nature as the conversation with which Mr. Bayard
indulged me; but we have given no encouragement to such conversations, thinking
that they are liable to much misrepresentation; and cannot lead to any good pur-
pose. All that I think I have learnt from them is this: that Mr. Adams is a very
bad arguer, and that the Federalists are quite as inveterate enemies to us as the
Madisonians. Those who know anything of America or Americans probably knew
this before." Goulburn to Earl Bathurst, September 2, 18 14. Wellington, Supple-
mentary Despatches, IX. 217. He had talked with Adams on the previous day.
Memoirs, III. 24.
2 August 27.
I - THE WRITINGS OF [1814
or, to speak more properly, very studious not to give offense.
I tho ight her handsomer than I had the day we had dined
• the Intendant's. There was a sufficient labor of attention
us to show that they all meant to be well-bred, but the
is not always equal to the effort. By some un-
accountable singularity, all the little occasional asperities
that have occurred in our intercourse with the other party
have been between the Chevalier [Bayard] and the Doctors
Commons lawyer [Adams]. This personage has pretensions
to wit, and wishes to pass himself off for a sayer of good
things. The Chevalier, who is a sportsman, was speaking of
a fowling piece on a new construction, price fifty guineas,
ich was primed with one grain of fulminating powder.
The Doctor thought that no fowling price could be good for
any thing that cost more than five guineas. He hinted to
the Chevalier that his fifty guineas musket was a gimcrack —
a philosophical whimsey, better for shooting a problem than
partridge; and he was [as] liberal of his sarcasms upon
philosophy as he could have been, if delivering a dissertation
upon gun-boats and dry-docks. The choice of the person
upon whom this blunderbuss of law discharged its volley of
ridicule against philosophy diverted us all, and you may
judge how much it delighted our colleague of the Treasury
latin.] The Chevalier pronounces our namesake to be
a man of no breeding. . . .
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 109
TO GEORGE JOY
Ghent, 31 August, 1814.
Sir:
Your favors of 9, 12, and 26 August, have been duly re-
ceived by me, and although I am sensible that an intercourse
by which valuable information is communicated on one side
while nothing is given in return cannot with a good grace
be requested, I still reply to your letters in the hope that
your mundanism will overlook the disadvantages of the com-
pact, and make allowances for the reserve which official
duty may sometimes command, and official gravity some-
times affect. I know not anything that would give me
greater pleasure than your making a fortune by a peace,
unless it were to make the peace that should make your for-
tune; but for the prospects and adventures of the negotia-
tion I must yet refer my correspondents in England to the
Courier and the Morning Chronicle; or, if they are lovers of
neutrality, to the Times, which as Times go I seldom see,
but which may be none the worse informed for that.
The solicitude which I manifested in a former letter, that
your opinions might not be mistaken for ours, arose not
merely from the possibility that such an error might arise,
but from the fact that on a point to which you had referred,
they were not the same. I have now seen the gentleman
with whom you had the correspondence and the conversa-
tion prior to his departure, and have had the opportunity
of forming my own opinion of his suavity and of his rigor.1
If we should not ultimately part the best friends in the world,
I shall use my best endeavors that we may not part foes,
either politically or individually.
1 Dr. William Adams.
I10 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
The rise of cottons and tobacco on the 26th doubtless had
a cause, and I am obliged to you for the information of the
effect. But you know the Royal Exchange is the very focus
of great effects from little causes. I am etc.
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 139. [James Monroe]
Ghent, 5 September, 18 14.
Sir:
On the 25th ultimo we sent in to the British plenipoten-
tiaries an answer to their note, and have every reason to
expect that before this day the negotiation would have been
terminated. Two days afterwards Mr. Bayard was ex-
plicitly told in a conservation with Mr. Goulburn that their
reply would be sent to us without delay, and that they should
have no occasion previous to sending it for any further refer-
ence to their government. On Wednesday, the 31st, Mr.
Baker called upon Mr. Gallatin with an apology for a delay
of a very few days, the British Plenipotentiaries having
concluded, in consideration of the great importance of the
thing, to send their note to England for the approbation of
their government before they transmitted it to us. The
next morning I had a conversation with Mr. Goulburn which
convinced me that the sole object of this reference was to
a greater appearance of deliberation and solemnity to
rupture.1
I ,u I have little hopes of its producing any change in the decision
the American plenipotentiaries. Many things have, ever since the commence-
ment of the negotiation, shown that their government had no real intention of
ng peace, but had acceded to the proposal of negotiating with the sole view
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS m
Some of the particulars of this conversation render it in
my mind sufficiently interesting for the substance of it to
be reported to you.1 I began it by expressing some satis-
faction at having learnt their reference to their government,
as it tended to encourage the hope that they would reconsider
some part of their proposals to the United States. He did
not think it probable, and in the whole tenor of his discourse
I perceived a spirit of inflexible adherence to the terms which
we have rejected; 2 but, under the cover of a personal de-
portment sufficiently courteous, a rancorous animosity
against America which disclosed there was nothing like
peace at the heart.
The great argument to which he continually recurred in
support of the Indian boundary and the exclusive military
possession of the Lakes by the British, was the necessity of
them for the security of Canada. The American govern-
ment, he said, had manifested the intention and the de-
termination of conquering Canada.
And excepting you (said he) I believe it was the astonishment of
the whole world that Canada had not been conquered at the very
outset of the war. Nothing could have saved it but the excellent
of deriving from the negotiations some means of reconciling the people of America
to the continuance of war. The Indian boundary appears to them calculated to
answer this object, and their desire of negotiating is therefore at an end." Goulburn
to Earl Bathurst, September S, 1814. Wellington, Supplementary Despatches,
IX. 221.
1 See also Adams, Memoirs, September 1, 1814.
2 "He gave me every reason to believe that it [the answer] would vary nothing
from their former communications. In that case the delay will only be until the
return of their messenger. To say the truth, we ought to wish there may be no
variation. Success is out of the question, and it is impossible that we should fail
in a more advantageous manner than as the matter now stands. And I have an
inexpressible reluctance at being kept, to be turned off with the news upon which
ihey are reckoning from America." To Louisa Catherine Adams, September 2,
1814. Ms.
: 12
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
dispositions and military arrangements of the Governor who com-
manded there. We were then not prepared for an attack upon
rovince with such an overwhelming force. But now we have
had time to send reinforcements, and I do not think you will
conquer it. In order, however, to guard against the same thing
in future it is necessary to make a barrier against the American
settlements, upon which neither party shall be permitted to en-
ach. The Indians are but a secondary object. As the allies
of Great Britain she must include them in the peace, as in making
peace with other powers she included Portugal as her ally. But
when the boundary is once defined it is immaterial whether the
!ians are upon it or not. Let it be a desert. But we shall know
that you cannot come upon us to attack us, without crossing it.
The stipulation to maintain no armed force on the Lakes is for
the same purpose — the security of Canada. I can see nothing dis-
honorable or humiliating in it. The United States can never be
in any danger of invasion from Canada. The disproportion of
:e is too great. But Canada must always be in the most immi-
nent danger of invasion from the United States, unless guarded by
some such stipulations as are now demanded. It can be nothing
to the United States to agree not to arm upon the Lakes, since they
never had actually done it before the present war. Why should
they object to disarming there where they had never before had
.:i floating.
1 answered that the conquest of Canada had never been
an object of the war on the part of the United States. It
has been invaded by us in consequence of the war, as they
them, elves had invaded many parts of the United States.
1 1 was an effect and not a cause of the war. I thought with
him that we should not now conquer it. But I had no doubt
hould, and that at no very distant period, if any such
ten they now required should ever be submitted to by
The American government, I said, never had declared
he Intention of conquering Canada. He referred to General
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 113
Hull's proclamation. I answered that the American govern-
ment was not responsible for that. It was no uncommon
thing for commanding officers to issue proclamations which
were disavowed by their government, of which a very recent
example had occurred in a proclamation of Admiral Coch-
rane. He said that the American government had not dis-
avowed Hull's proclamation, and that the British govern-
ment had not disavowed any proclamation of Admiral
Cochrane's. I replied that the American government had
never been called upon either to avow or disavow Hull's
proclamation, but I had seen in a printed statement of the
debates in the House of Commons that Lord Castlereagh
had been called upon to say whether Admiral Cochrane's
proclamation had been authorized or not, and had answered
that it was not. He said that Lord Castlereagh had been
asked whether a proclamation of Admiral Cochrane's, en-
couraging the negroes to revolt, had been authorized by the
government, and had answered in the negative; that is, that
no proclamation encouraging the negroes to revolt had been
authorized. But the proclamation of Admiral Cochrane
referred to gave no such encouragement, there was not a
word about negroes in it. It merely offered employment or
a settlement in the British colonies to such persons as might
be disposed to leave the United States. I asked him what
was the import of the term free used in the proclamation in
connection with the offer of settlements? He answered the
question with some hesitation, but admitted that it might
be understood as having reference to slaves. I admitted on
my part that the word "negroes" was not in the proclama-
tion, but remarked that he must be as sensible as I was that
it could have reference only to them. That certainly no
person in America could mistake its meaning. It was un-
questionably intended for the negroes, and corresponded
1I4 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
sufficiently with the practice of others of their naval officers.
It was known that some of them, under similar inducements,
had taken away blacks who had afterwards been sold in the
\Y 1 India islands. Upon this Mr. Goulburn, with an
t-vident struggle to suppress a feeling of strong irritation,
said, "that he could undertake to deny in the most unquali-
fied terms; the character of British naval officers was uni-
versally known, their generosity and humanity could never
be contested; and besides that since the act of Parliament
of 181 1, the act of selling any man for a slave, unless real
slaves, from one British island to another, was felony with-
out benefit of clergy. I replied that without contesting the
character of any class of people generally, it was certain
there would be in all classes individuals capable of commit-
ting actions of which others would be ashamed. That at a
great distance from the eye and control of the government,
act> were often done with impunity, which would be severely
punished nearer home. That the facts I had stated to him
were among the objects which we were instructed to present
for consideration, if the negotiation should proceed, and he
might in that case find it more susceptible of proof than he
was aware. He thought it impossible, but that it was one
of those charges against their officers, of which there were
. originating only in the spirit of hostility and totally
titute of foundation.
With respect to the Indian allies, I remarked that there
analogy between them and the case of Portugal.
I ■ peace would of itself include all the Indians included
lin the British limits; but the stipulation which might
be accessary for the protection of Indians situated within
he boundaries of the United States who had taken the
: side in the war, was rather in the nature of an am-
iy than of a provision for allies. It resembled more the
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 115
case of subjects who in cases of invasion took part with the
invader, as had sometimes happened to Great Britain in
Ireland. He insisted that the Indians must be considered
as independent nations, for that we ourselves made treaties
with them and acknowledged boundaries of their territories.
I said that wherever they would form settlements and cul-
tivate lands, their possessions were undoubtedly to be
respected, and always were respected by the United States.
That some of them had become civilized in a considerable
degree; the Cherokees, for example, who had permanent
habitations and a state of property like our own. But the
greater part of the Indians never could be prevailed upon
to adopt this mode of life. Their habits, and attachments,
and prejudices were so averse to any settlement that they
could not reconcile themselves to any other condition than
that of wandering hunters. It was impossible for such
people ever to be said to have possessions. Their only right
upon land was a right to use it as hunting grounds; and when
those lands where they hunted became necessary or con-
venient for the purposes of settlement, the system adopted
by the United States was by amicable arrangement with
them to compensate them for renouncing the right of hunting
upon them, and for removing to remoter regions better
suited to their purposes and mode of life. This system of
the United States was an improvement upon the former
practice of all European nations, including the British. The
original settlers of New England had set the first example of
this liberality towards the Indians, which was afterwards
followed by the founder of Pennsylvania. Between it and
taking the lands for nothing, or exterminating the Indians
who had used them, there was no alternative. To condemn
vast regions of territory to perpetual barrenness and solitude,
that a few hundred savages might find wild beasts to hunt
u6 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
upon it, was a species of game law that a nation descended
from Britons would never endure. It was as incompatible
with the moral as with the physical nature of things. If
Great Britain meant to preclude forever the people of the
United States from settling and cultivating those territories,
■ must not think of doing it by a treaty. She must form-
ally undertake and accomplish their utter extermination.
If the government of the United States should ever submit
to such a stipulation, which I hoped they would not, all its
rce, and all that of Britain combined with it, would not
suffice to carry it long into execution. It was opposing a
feather to a torrent. The population of the United States
in 1 8 10 passed seven millions. At this hour it undoubtedly
passed eight. As it continued to increase in such proportions,
was it in human experience or in human power to check its
progress by a bond of paper, purporting to exclude posterity
from the natural means of subsistence which they would
derive from the cultivation of the soil? Such a treaty, in-
stead of closing the old sources of dissension, would only
□ new ones. A war thus finished would immediately be
followed by another, and Great Britain would ultimately
find that she must substitute the project of exterminating
the whole American people, to that of opposing against them
her barrier of savages. The proposal of dooming a large
extent of lands, naturally fertile, to be forever desert by
tipact, would be a violation of the laws of nature and of
nations, as recognized by the most distinguished writers on
public law. It would be an outrage upon Providence, which
• the earth to man for cultivation, and made the tillage
»1 the ground the condition of his nature and the law of his
tence. 'What (said Mr. Goulburn), is it then in the
inevitable nature of things that the United States must con-
quer Canada?" "No." "But what security then can Great
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 117
Britain have for her possession of it?" "If Great Britain
does not think a liberal and amicable course of policy towards
America would be the best security, as it certainly would,
she must rely upon her general strength, upon the superiority
of her power in other parts of her relations with America,
upon the power which she has upon another element to
indemnify herself by sudden impression upon American in-
terests, more defenceless against her superiority than Canada
against ours, and in their amount far more valuable than
Canada ever was or ever will be." He said that Great
Britain had no intention to carry on a war either of exter-
mination or of conquest, but recurred again to our superior
force, and to the necessity of providing against it. He added
that in Canada they never took any of the Indian lands, and
even the government (meaning the provincial government)
was prohibited from granting them. That there were among
the Indians very civilized people; there was particularly
one man whom he knew, Norton, who commanded some of
the Indians engaged on the British side in the war, and who
was a very intelligent and well informed man. But the
removing the Indians from their lands to others was one of
the very things of which Great Britain complained. That
it drove them over into their provinces, and made them
annoy and encroach upon the Indians within their limits.
This was a new idea to me. I told him I had never heard
any complaint of that kind before, and I supposed that a
remedy for it would very easily be found. He made no re-
ply, and seemed as if in the pressure for an argument he had
advanced more than he was inclined to maintain. It was
the same with regard to the proposal that we should keep
no armed force on or near the lakes of Canada. He did not
admit that there was anything humiliating to the United
States or unusual in it, but he evaded repeatedly answering
1 Itf
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
the question how he or the English nation would feel if the
proposition were made to them of binding themselves by
such a stipulation. I finally said that if he did not feel that
there was anything dishonorable to the party submitting
to such terms, it was not a subject susceptible of argument.
I could assure him that we and our nation would feel it to be
such. That such stipulations were indeed often extorted
from the weakness of a vanquished enemy; but they were
always felt to be dishonorable and had certainly occasioned
more wars than they had ever prevented. It was true, as
he had said, the United States had never prior to the war
had an armed naval force upon the Lakes. I thought it
infinitely probable that if Great Britain had said nothing
upon the subject in the negotiation, the United States would
not have retained a naval force there after the restoration
of the peace. It was more than I could say that this anxiety
manifested by Great Britain to disarm them would not
operate as a warning to them to keep a competent portion
of the force now created, even during peace, and whether
his government, by advancing the proposal to dismantle,
will not eventually fix the purpose of the United States to
remain always armed even upon the lakes.
The whole of this conversation was on both sides perfectly
cool and temperate in the manner, though sometimes very
earnest on mine, and sometimes with a hurry of reply and
.in embarrassment of expression on his, indicating an effort
to control the disclosure of feelings under strong excitement.
The most remarkable instance of this was upon the intima-
tion from me, that some of their naval officers had enticed
au a\ numbers of our black people, who had afterwards been
sold in the West India islands. I stated the fact on the
authority of your instructions to the present joint mission
of 28 January last, and persisted in asserting it, on the as-
l8l4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 119
surance that there is proof of it in possession of the Depart-
ment of State. In the present state of public opinion in
England respecting the traffic of slaves, I was well aware of
the impression which the mere statement would make upon
Mr. Goulburn. The rupture of this negotiation will render
it unnecessary for us to possess the proof which it was your
intention at the date of your instructions of 28th January to
furnish us, but at any future attempt to treat for peace it
will be important to produce it, and I would even suggest
the expediency of giving as much publicity as possible to
it in Europe, while the war continues.
The avowal of Admiral Cochrane's proclamation, and the
explanation of Lord Castlereagh's disavowal of it in the
House of Commons, were remarkable as examples of the
kind of reasoning to which the British government is willing
to resort. Whether the distinction taken in this case really
belonged to Lord Castlereagh, or whether erroneously as-
scribed to him by Mr. Goulburn, I cannot say; but Mr. Goul-
burn was present in the House of Commons when the debate
referred to took place.
The strangest feature in the general complexion of his
discourse was the inflexible adherence to the proposed
Indian boundary line. But the pretext upon which this
proposition had in the first instance been placed, the pacifica-
tion with the Indians and their future security, was almost
abandoned — avowed to be a secondary and very subordinate
object. The security of Canada was now substituted as
the prominent motive. But the great and real one, though
not of a nature ever to be acknowledged, was occasionally
discernible through all its veils. This was no other than a
profound and rankling jealousy at the rapid increase of
population and of settlements in the United States, an im-
potent longing to thwart their progress and to stunt their
lZ0 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
growth. With this temper prevailing in the British councils,
it is not in the hour of their success that we can expect to
obtain a peace upon terms of equal justice or of reciprocity.
I am etc.
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, September 9, 18 14.
. . . We this day send in to the other party our second
note which places us precisely where we were at the first.
If they hold to their original ground, they may dismiss
themselves and us from all further official intercourse to-
morrow morning. My only reason for doubting whether
they will do so now is that they did not take that step before.
We certainly not only considered the whole business at an
end then, but none of us had an idea of being here at this
day. I wrote you that after what passed, what we had
reason to expect from them was a card P. P. C. Instead of
that they sent us a note of sixteen folio pages, still hammer-
ing upon the old anvil, and putting it upon us to take leave
of them. As we are inclined not to be behindhand with
them either in civility or in prolixity, we return them a note
<>f equal dimensions, and still leaving the "to be or not to
at their option. If they choose to play this game of
chicaner)' they may, I know not how long. But if they will
take no for an answer, we shall be released in two or three
d a j .
\\ e are still perfectly unanimous, and if we had not the
run of luck so infernally against us, I should not despair of
ultimate success. As it is we shall unquestionably make a
better case for the public, on both sides of the Atlantic,
>ur adversaries. We are in the first place severe judges
upon one another, and setting aside your correspondent,
l8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 121
every one of his four associates is, to say the least, a match
for the brightest of our opponents. You wrote me at one
time a current English report that there was to be but one
commissioner appointed to meet us — one British negotiator
being fully competent to meet five Americans. I wished
the report might be true; for whether the result was to be
success or failure, the lower the rate at which the adversary
estimated our talents, the greater advantage he would give
us in the argument over himself. His contempt, however,
was a mere bravado. Instead of one commissioner he ap-
pointed three, and I believe in such cases as this, supposing
the average of talents to be the same, a commission of three
members will always be able to meet with at least equal ad-
vantage a commission of five. They are certainly not mean
men, who have been opposed to us; but for extent and
copiousness of information, for sagacity and shrewdness of
comprehension, for vivacity of intellect, and fertility of re-
source, there is certainly not among them a man equal to
Mr. Gallatin. I doubt whether there is among them a man
of the powers of the Chevalier. In all our transactions
hitherto we have been much indebted to the ability of both
these gentlemen for the ascendency in point of argument
which we have constantly maintained over our antag-
onists. . . .
We had here the other day a Mr. Van Havert, a son-in-
law of Mr. Stier, and brother-in-law to Mrs. Calvert, of
whom you have heard, and whom you perhaps know.
Air. Van Havert lived some years at Alexandria, and he told
me that if he had met me in the street he should have known
me from my resemblance to my father. On the other hand
the ex-gardener, of whom I wrote you the other day, said to
me of our sons, "George, Sir, is a. fine, tall, stout boy; but as
for John, Sir, he is the very picture of you."
122
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
ANSWER TO THE BRITISH COMMISSIONERS »
[September 9, 18 14.]
The undersigned Ministers plenipotentiary and extraor-
dinary from the United States of America have had the
honor of receiving the note of his Britannic Majesty's pleni-
potentiaries of the 4th inst.
If in the tone or the substance of the former note of the
undersigned the British Commissioners have perceived no 2
disposition on the part of the American government for a
discussion of some of the propositions advanced in the first
note which the undersigned had the honor of receiving from
them, they will please to ascribe it to the nature of the
1 A draft by Adams. The note sent is in American State Papers, Foreign Rela-
.111. 715. The British note, dated September 4, was delivered to the Amer-
ican Commissioners on the 5th. "Mr. Bayard pronounced it a very stupid pro-
duction. Mr. Clay was for answering it by a note of half a page. I neither thought
it stupid nor proper to be answered in half a page." Gallatin proposed to make
an analysis of the contents and note what required an answer. On the following
day (6th) Gallatin produced his notes and it was agreed he should draft a reply con-
formably. Bayard appeared willing to concede something on the Indian question,
but Clay and Adams were for admitting no stipulations about the Indians in a
ity with England. Adams wished to show that the floating commerce of the
United States, subject to seizure by the naval superiority of Great Britain, was a
sufficient pledge for the security of Canada against sudden invasion; and also that
the employment of Indians was contrary to the laws of war. This latter point was
rejected, but on the 7th was again urged, and Adams prepared a statement of it for
consideration. Receiving Gallatin's draft, with the suggestions of Bayard and
Clay, Adams "struck out the greatest part of my own previous draft, preferring
that of Mr. Gallatin upon the same points. On the main question, relative to the
Indian boundary, I made a new draft of several paragraphs, comprising the princi-
idcas of them all, and introducing an additional view of the subject of my own.
> prepared a paragraph concerning the employment of savages. . . .
Mv new paragraph respecting Indian rights was adopted without much alteration.
I .it against the employment of savages was fully adopted in substance, but with
a multitude of amendments." Adams, Memoirs, September 5-8, 1814.
: 1 t the word "no" Gallatin inserted "little proof of any."
i8i41 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 123
propositions themselves; to their incompatibility with the
assurances in Lord Castlereagh's letter to the American
Secretary of State, proposing their negotiation, and with
the solemn assurances of the British plenipotentiaries them-
selves to the undersigned, at their first conference with them.
Of the frankness with which the British plenipotentiaries
now represent themselves to have disclosed all the objects
of their government while those of the American govern-
ment are stated to have been withheld, a sufficient elucida-
tion may be formed in the facts, that the British pleni-
potentiaries have hitherto declined all discussion even of
the points proposed by themselves, unless the undersigned
would be prepared to sign a provisional article upon a sub-
ject concerning which they had from the first declared them-
selves to be without instructions and upon a basis unex-
ampled in the negotiations of civilized states, and which
they have shown to be inadmissible. That one of the most
objectionable demands of the British government was never
disclosed until the third conference, after the points sug-
gested for discussion on both sides had been reciprocally
submitted for consideration. That upon the inquiry whether
this new proposition was considered also as a sine qua non
of a treaty, the undersigned were answered that one sine
qua non at a time was enough, and when they had disposed
of that already given them, it would be time enough to
talk of another.1
If the undersigned had proposed to the British plenipo-
tentiaries, as an indispensable preliminary to all discussion,
the admission of a principle contrary to the most established
maxims of public law, and with which the United States
under the pretence of including Indian allies in the peace,
would have annexed entire provinces to their dominions,
1 This paragraph has been struck ouc.
I24 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
the reproach of being actuated by a spirit of aggrandizement
might justly have been advanced against them; to the
;ertion that the declared policy of the American govern-
:it has been to make the war a part of a system of con-
quo t and aggrandizement the undersigned oppose the most
inted denial of its truth; and they are willing to leave it
the judgment of an impartial world to decide with what
propriety the charge proceeds from a state demanding an
ive cession of territory, to a state making no such
demand.1
The undersigned repeat what they have already had the
honor explicitly to declare to the British plenipotentiaries;
that they have no authority to treat with them for the in-
terests of Indians inhabiting within the boundaries of the
United States. That the question of their boundary is a
question exclusively between the United States and them-
Ives, with which Great Britain has no concern. That the
undersigned will therefore subscribe to no provisional article
upon the subject. That they will not refer it to the con-
sideration of their government; first, because the British
1 mmissioners have warned them that if they do, the
British government will not hold itself bound to abide by
the terms which they now offer, but will vary them at their
pleasure; and secondly because they know that their govern-
ment would instantaneously reject the proposal. That they
will subscribe to no article renouncing the right of the
I ; I States to maintain fortifications on their own shores,
>f maintaining a naval force on those lakes, where
such a l'-rcc has been during the war so efficaciously felt.
1 finally that they have no authority to cede any part of
the tcrriti >ry of the United States.1
li the Governor General of Canada has made to the In-
1 This paragraph has been struck out.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 125
dians under the protection of the United States, to seduce
them to betray the duties of their obligations, and to violate
their treaties, any promises of British protection, it is for
his government to fulfil those promises at their own expense,
and not at that of the United States.1 But the employ-
ment of savages, whose known rule of warfare is the in-
discriminate torture and butchery of women, children, and
prisoners, is itself a departure from the principles of human-
ity observed between all civilized and Christian nations even
in war. [Great Britain herself employs them only in her
wars against the United States and] 2 the United States have
constantly protested and still protest against it as an un-
justifiable aggravation of the barbarities and horrors of war.
Of the peculiar atrocities of the Indian warfare, the allies
of Great Britain in whose behalf she now demands sacrifices
from the United States have during the present war shown
many deplorable examples; among them, the massacre of
wounded prisoners in cold blood, and the refusal of the rites
of burial to the dead, under the eyes of British officers, who
could only plead their inability to control those savage
auxiliaries, have been repeated and are notorious to the
world. The United States have with extreme reluctance
been compelled to resort on their part to the same mode of
warfare thus practiced against them.3 The United States
might at all times have employed the same kind of force
against Great Britain, and to a greater extent than it was
in her power to employ it against them; but from their reluc-
tance to resort to means so abhorrent to the natural feelings
of humanity, they abstained from the use of them, until
1 This sentence was altered in arrangement without changing the sense, but the
whole was finally struck out.
2 Words in brackets were struck out.
3 This sentence was struck out, and the sentence following substituted for it.
I26 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
:npellcd to the alternative of employing themselves In-
dians who would otherwise have been drawn into the ranks
of their enemies. But the undersigned, in suggesting to the
British Commissioners the propriety of an article by which
Great Britain and the United States should reciprocally
stipulate, never hereafter, if they should again be at war, to
avages in it believe [that it would readily meet the
approbation and ratification of their government, and] *
that it would be infinitely more honorable to the humanity
and Christian temper of both parties, more advantageous
to the Indians themselves, and more adapted to secure the
permanent peace, tranquillity, and progress of civiliza-
tion, than the boundary proposed by the British Com-
missioners.
If the United States had now asserted that the Indians
within their boundaries who have acknowledged the United
States as their only protectors, were their subjects, living
only at sufferance on their lands, far from being the first in
making that assertion they would only have followed the
example of the principles, uniformly and invariably asserted
in substance, and frequently avowed in express terms by the
British government itself. What was the meaning of all
the colonial charters granted by the British monarchs from
that of Virginia by Elizabeth to that of Georgia by the im-
mediate predecessor of the present king, if the Indians were
the sovereigns and possessors 2 of the lands bestowed by
What was the meaning of that article in
treaty <>f Utrecht, by which the Five Nations were de-
ribed in terms, as subject to the dominion of Great Britain?
Or <>f that treaty with the Cherokccs, by which it was de-
clared that the king of Great Britain granted them the
1 This cl struck out.
1 For this wurJ Gallatin substituted "proprietors."
,8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 127
privilege to live where they pleased, if those subjects were
independent sovereigns, and these tenants at the license of
the British King were the rightful lords of the lands where
he granted them permission to live? What was the meaning
of that proclamation of his present Britannic Majesty,
issued in 1763, declaring all purchases of lands from Indians
null and void unless made by treaties held under the sanction
of his Majesty's government, if the Indians had the right
to sell their lands to whom they pleased? In formally pro-
testing against this system, it is not against a novel preten-
sion of the American government, it is against the most
solemn acts of their own sovereigns, against the royal proc-
lamations, charters and treaties of Great Britain for more
than two centuries, from the first settlement of North
America to the present day, that the British plenipotentiaries
protest. What is the meaning of the boundary lines of
American territory in all the treaties of Great Britain with
other European powers having American possessions, in her
treaty of peace with the United States of 1785: nay, what
is the meaning of the northwestern boundary line now pro-
posed by the British Commissioners themselves, if it is the
rightful possession and sovereignty of independent Indians,
of which those boundaries dispose? 1
From the rigor of this system, however, as practised by
Great Britain and all the other European powers in America,
the humane and liberal policy of the United States has vol-
untarily relaxed. A celebrated writer on the laws of nations,
to whose authority British jurists have taken particular
satisfaction in appealing, after stating in the most explicit
Gallatin added the following: "Is it indeed necessary to ask whether Great
Britain ever has permitted, or would permit, any foreign nation, or without her
consent any of her subjects, to acquire lands from the Indians, in the territories of
the Hudson Bay Company, or in Canada ? "
ll8 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
.nner the legitimacy of colonial settlements in America,
xclusion of all rights of uncivilized Indian tribes,
has taken occasion to praise the moderation of the first
tiers of New England, and of the founder of Pennsylvania,
in having purchased of the Indians the lands they resolved
cultivate, notwithstanding their being furnished with a
charter from their sovereign. It is this example which the
I oited States, since they became by their independence the
sovereigns of the territory, have adopted and organized into
political system. Under that system the Indians residing
within the United States are so far independent that they
live under their own customs and not under the laws of the
United States; that their rights upon the lands where they
inhabit or hunt, are secured to them by boundaries defined
in amicable treaties between the United States and them-
selves, and that whenever those boundaries are varied it is
also by amicable ' treaties, by which they receive from the
I nited States ample compensation for every right they have
to tlie lands ceded by them. They are so far dependent as
II* >t to have the right to dispose of their lands to any private
persons, nor to any power other than the United States, and
to be under their protection alone, and not under that of
any other power. Whether called subjects, or by whatever
name designated, such is the relation between them and
the United States. [These principles have been uniformly
reo ignized by the Indians themselves, not only by the
treaty of Greenville, but by all the other treaties between
lited States and the Indian tribes.] 2 Is it indeed
necessary, etc.
iatin inserted the words "and voluntary."
c was struck out, and Gallatin substituted the following: "That
li t the first time; nor did it originate with the treaty
These principles have been uniformly recognized by the Indians
i8i4I JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 129
These stipulations by the Indians to sell their lands only
to the United States do not prove that without them they
would have the right to sell them to others. The utmost
that they can contend to show would be a claim by them to
such a right, never acknowledged by the United States. It
is indeed a novel process of reasoning to consider [the re-
nunciation of a claim as a proof of a right] ! a disclaimer as
the proof of a right.2
An Indian boundary and the exclusive military posses-
sion of the lakes could after all prove but futile and ineffect-
ual securities to Great Britain for the permanent defense of
Canada against the great and growing preponderancy of the
United States, on that particular point of her possessions.
But no sudden invasion of Canada by the United States
could be made without leaving on their Atlantic shores and
on the ocean, exposed to the great superiority of British
force, a mass of American property tenfold 3 more valuable
than Canada [ever was or ever can be.] In her relative
superior force [over all the rest of the globe] 4 to that of the
United States, 5 Great Britain may find a pledge infinitely 6
more efficacious for the safety of a single vulnerable point,
than in stipulations, ruinous to the interests and degrading
to the honor of America.7
themselves, not only by that treaty, but in all the other previous as well as subse-
quent treaties between them and the United States."
1 The words were set aside for what follows.
2 The whole paragraph was struck out.
3 The word "far" is substituted for "tenfold."
4 Words in brackets were struck out.
s Gallatin added "in every other quarter."
6 Gallatin substituted the word "much" for "infinitely."
7 Bathurst and Liverpool exchanged opinions on the American note of Septem-
ber 9, and agreed in the absolute necessity of including the Indians in the treaty of
peace, and insisting that they be restored to all the rights and privileges which they
had enjoyed before the war. They also believed in the expediency of giving in an
I30 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
TO ABIGAIL ADAMS
Ghent, 10 September, 1814.
When I wrote you my last letter, a press copy of which Is
inck.scd, I had little or no expectation that I should at this
still be here. The John Adams sailed from the Texel
with Mr. Dallas ' on board, the 28th of August, and has, I
hope, by this time half performed her passage. It is one of
those singular incidents which occurs occasionally in real
life, and which would be thought too improbable for a
fictitious narrative, that while she was going out by one
passage, Mr. Smith 2 and his family were entering from
Cronstadt by another. They are now at Amsterdam, and
I have written to him to come with them here. They will
be near the Neptune, now at Antwerp, in which they must
embark if they return to America, which will in my opinion
be the most advisable for them. We are still expecting
every day, and indeed every hour, the formal notice of the
termination of our business here; but while we do remain
Mr. Smith's assistance will be most useful to me; for at the
very moment of all my life when I most needed the service
of a secretary, I have been deprived of it, and since the
British plenipotentiaries have been here, my whole time
ultimatum respecting the boundary before ascertaining that the American Com-
ioncrs would agree to the British propositions respecting the Indians. Liver-
1 wrote, September II: "I confess I cannot believe that with the prospect of
bef ire them, the American government would not wish to make peace,
if they can make it upon terms which would not give a triumph to their enemies.
1 .. • .!y inclined from all I hear to believe that a bankruptcy would be the
ntinuing the war for another year; but we must recollect that if the
upon which the negotiation terminated were popular, a bankruptcy would,
1 time at : reatly add to their military means. The war would then be
r, in which all private rights and interests would be sacri-
\V. llin fton, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 240.
Mifflin Dal
lum Steuben Smith.
isi4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 13 1
has been altogether inadequate to the writing and copying
which was and will be indispensable. If Mr. Smith con-
cludes to go back to Russia, they must return as they came,
by water. There is a vessel at Amsterdam to sail between
the 16th and 30th of this month for Cronstadt, in which we
may perhaps all embark. But it is already very late for a
passage up the Baltic, and if we should be detained here
three weeks longer it will be impossible.
It would appear that the failure of the negotiations here
will be unexpected to all parties in the United States, and a
disappointment particularly to the friends of the govern-
ment. But whoever imagined that it would be defeated by
the appointment of Mr. Clay and Mr. Russell mistook al-
together the views and wishes of those gentlemen. We have
all been equally anxious for the success of the mission, and all
equally determined to reject the bases proposed to us by the
British ministers. They have entirely changed the objects
of the war, and begun by requiring of us, as a preliminary
to all discussion of what had been the points in controversy,
concessions which with one voice and without hesitation we
refused. In the course to be pursued by us there has not
been the slightest diversity of opinion between us, and as
the unfortunate circumstances under which we were called
to treat have rendered it impossible that the peace should be
made, we have had the only satisfaction which could be
found in missing the great object, that of having constantly
harmonized among ourselves.
Before the John Adams sailed we had explicitly rejected
in writing the proposal, without the admission of which the
British ministers had declared that their government was
resolved not to conclude a peace. We supposed therefore
that in reply they would have notified to us that the con-
ferences and the negotiation were at an end. They chose,
1 12
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
however, after taking time to send a message to London,
to reply in a long note so ambiguous in its tenor, as to leave
it d.-ubtful whether they meant to abandon their indispen-
sable preliminary, or to adhere to it, and attempting to put
upon us in this state of equivocation the responsibility of
breaking off the conferences. We have answered this by a
note equally long, adhering to our rejection of their pre-
liminary, but renewing the offer and repeating the wish to
neg< »tiate upon all the differences which had existed between
the two countries before they had brought their new pre-
tensions. This note we sent them yesterday, and left them
again to declare the negotiation at an end. I should have
expected this declaration in the course of this day, had not
their last note evidently shown that, although determined
Dot to conclude the peace, they are not indifferent to the
object of putting upon us the responsibility of the rupture.
This being their policy, they may, if they think proper, pro-
tract the discussion some time longer. Their government
have been studiously procrastinating the whole negotiation
with the view to avail themselves of the great successes
which are to follow the operations of their reinforcements in
America. It is already known that those destined for Canada
have arrived, and they have been some time expecting news
< >f t he effect of their offensive operations. They may possibly
:rve their dismission of us for the first intelligence of a
victi >ry in America.
Vve have not only had the happiness of harmonizing to-
ther among ourselves upon the objects of our public min-
istry, but we have lived together on the most friendly social
ting. When we first assembled we all had lodgings at the
.same hotel and had a common table among ourselves. After
we had been there a few weeks we engaged by the month a
large house, in which we are all accommodated with apart-
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 133
ments, and where we compose only one family. The secre-
taries connected with the mission have apartments in the
neighborhood and dine with us every day. We have a con-
siderable acquaintance and as much society as we wish with
the principal inhabitants of the city, and we have been
visited by numbers of our countrymen attracted hither by
purposes of interest or of curiosity. This last circumstance
has been the occasion however of some inconvenience to us
and of rumors in England which, if they were well founded,
would not be to our advantage.
At the time when Mr. Dallas was dispatched, some meas-
ures, which it became necessary to some of my colleagues
to take preparatory to their return to America, indicated
their immediate departure. Colonel Milligan, who had been
Mr. Bayard's private secretary, took that moment to go to
visit some relations in Scotland, and was accompanied by
one of our American visitors, named Creighton, to London
and Liverpool. On their arrival very large speculations in
cotton and tobacco were made, founded on reports that the
negotiation at Ghent was broken off", and many particulars
with a mixture of truth and of misstatement appeared in the
English newspapers of what had passed between the British
and American plenipotentiaries. The report which arose
from all this in England was that the American ministers were
speculating for themselves on the event of the negotiation. I
hope that Milligan has not descended to such a despicable
practice himself. I am fully convinced that not one of my
colleagues has sullied his fair fame by participation in such
a sordid transaction; but at all events I am sure you will
need no protestation or denial from me to "show there was
one who held it in disdain."1
• ••••••
1 "I dare say you will recollect the conversation which I once had with you, in
Ij4 THE WRITINGS OF I1814
TO LAFAYETTE
Ghent, ii September, 1814.
My Dear Sir:
Mr. Connell brought me your very obliging favor of the
10th instant. I beg you to accept my thanks for the kind
which I expressed to you my sense of the extreme impropriety of connecting any
commercial speculation of private interest with the business of this negotiation.
An incident has recently occurred very strongly confirming me in the sentiments I
had entertained on that subject. Immediately after the departure of Mr. Dallas,
ad [George] Milligan very suddenly went off to Scotland, accompanied, as far
as London and Liverpool, by an American named Creighton, who had been some
time here, and had received from the mission the usual attentions of civility. Their
arrival at London and at Liverpool was the signal for universal speculations in
American articles, on the reported rupture of the negotiations, and of statements
in the newspapers, not altogether correct, but with a mixture of facts which could
only have been divulged by them. Creighton is known to have been very deep in
e speculations; and if Milligan was not, the indiscretion of his conduct, by
thus going to England, even without a passport, has not only involved him in the
*uspicion of participation in them himself, but has implicated the whole American
mission in the same suspicion, a procedure for which so far as concerns myself, I
do not thank him." To Levett Harris, September II, 1814. Ms.
-•re has been a considerable sensation on Change today owing to a report
that the Conferences at Ghent are broken off. Whether true or not can be no news
to you, tho' the effect may be. There were strong buyers and large purchasers of
cotton and tobacco, ten per cent above yesterday's prices, so that the knowing ones
suspect that if there be nothing fresh from Ghent, there must have been some un-
favorable decision here on something received before." George Joy to John Quincy
Adams, August 26, 1814. Ms.
"There have indeed been many extraordinary reports here within the last few
days which have occasioned an extraordinary rise on tobacco and cotton, both in
this market and that of Liverpool. Besides what was stated to have come from
nt, it was said last week that persons applying at the Foreign Office to have
letters sent to the British Commissioners had been told that they were expected in
D parly this week; and that Mr. Vansittart had told a mutual friend of his
an i I rambier, that his lordship was expected to return to England immedi-
1 ■•.. while they served to advance the prices of American produce,
have had the effect of lowering the funds. Today, however, they are a little better,
,814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 135
expression of your wish to have seen me at Paris before my
return to St. Petersburg. The pleasure of meeting you once
more, after so long and so eventful an interval since I had
last the happiness of seeing you, is the greatest among many
strong inducements I should have for visiting that city, could
it accord with other views which will probably render a more
direct return to Russia necessary to me. I shall also par-
ticularly regret missing the opportunity of seeing again my
very worthy friend, Mr. Victor de Tracy, and of forming a
personal acquaintance with his respectable family. I shall
always feel myself under obligations to his father and to you,
for having furnished me the occasion of rendering him the
feeble service that was in my power, and which I lamented
not having been able to make more effectual, as they
themselves would have wished. Will you please to pre-
sent my most particular regards to Mr. Victor de Tracy,
for whose personal character I entertain the highest
esteem?
Our prospects here have varied only by the postponement
of a termination which a fair, not to say a generous, enemy
would have notified to us more than a fortnight since. Our
country must now rekindle in defence of her rights with that
ardor which you witnessed and shared in the days of our
Revolution. If the spirit of genuine liberty and of youthful
heroism which then sympathized with us in Europe is ex-
tinct, we must maintain our cause self-supported, until the
selfish statesmen of the European continent shall discover
that our cause is their own, and the most crafty shall join
us to share with us the honor of a defence which we shall
otherwise have exclusively to ourselves.
Mr. Smith whom I expect here in one or two days will be
and on the other hand the prices of American produce are on the decline." R. G.
Beasley to John Quincy Adams, September 6, 1814. Ms.
,,6 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
much flattered by your obliging regards. He will probably
return with my colleagues to America.
Accept etc.
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, September 13, 1814.
... I cannot yet revoke the advice to you, not to
direct any more letters to me here. We are still in precisely
the same predicament as when I wrote you last. We have
no reply to the note we sent on Friday; so I suppose they
mean to give us another dissertation of sixteen pages, and
I am now not without suspicions that it will be like the last,
giving up in one sentence what they adhere to in another,
scolding like an old woman, insulting in one paragraph and
compliant in another, and as to everything in the shape of
argument battant la campagne.1
Never was anything more explicit than their conference
with us the day Lord Castlereagh was here, and their note
dated on the same day. "Will you, or will you not?" was
the word. Never was anything more explicit than our
answer, "We will not," and off we sent Mr. Dallas. If there
had been anything in them like fair dealing, they ought to
have dismissed us the next day. The second day after,
Mr. Goulburn told Mr. Bayard that we should have their
reply without delay, and they should have no occasion to
.It their government. Four days later they sent Mr.
B iker t<> tell us they had thought best upon reflection to
1 The American note of September 9 was sent to London, where the draft of a
,rcd and dispatched to Ghent September 16. This draft, printed
in Wellington Supplementary Despatches, IX. 263, will be found in the form sent
iir American Commissioners, in American State Papers, Foreign Relations,
UI.717.
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 137
send a messenger to London. Eleven days after our note
had been sent came their reply, such as I have described it,
abandoning and at the same time adhering to the terms
which we had rejected with disdain; with a conclusion asking
if we choose to take it upon ourselves to break off. We have
rejoined, that we do not wish to break off, but we say no to
their terms, without which they began by telling us that
they would break off. As they have been five days deliberat-
ing upon what they shall now say, I conclude that they will
finally give us the ball back again, and still contrive to make
delay. For we have no reason to hope they will retreat an
inch from their ground, and we shall never concede one of
Mr. Hynam's measures, the thirty-six thousandth part
of an inch of it to them. . . . The delay since our first
answer has been according to all appearances an after-
thought of their government, unexpected to themselves.
I say all this to you chiefly for the purpose of showing you
as precisely as it is seen by myself, the prospect with regard
to the time of my departure. If the British government
intend to make delay, it is in their power. By their proceed-
ings for the last fortnight we are warranted in suspecting
that they do intend delay. The next note from their min-
isters must either terminate our business or more clearly dis-
close their views. . . -1
1 "There is, however, too much reason to apprehend, notwithstanding the hope
expressed to you in my last, that the maritime question will for the present be suf-
fered to repose: for as you justly observe the contracting parties at Vienna, with
the exception of the one which pays the pots cassis, are likely to be too much occu-
pied with the division of their spoils to think for the present of new wars. And
there is evidently at this moment no sovereign in Europe on whom we can count, or
whose professions rather are in the least encouraging to us, except the Emperor of
Russia. And in relation to His I. M. it is lamentable to add that all my late con-
versations with the Chancellor have left me little hope that in the conferences at
Vienna the question of the maritime abuses of our enemy would be agitated."
Ltvett Harris to John Quincy Adams, September 9/21, 1814. Ms.
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
TO GEORGE JOY
Ghent, 13th September, 18 14.
Sir:
If your affairs should call you to this place previous to
my departure from it, I shall be very happy to see you. If
the motive of conversing with me would be inducement
sufficient for you to take this city in your way to or from
elsewhere, it would afford me much gratification; but to be
perfectly candid with you, if any views of commercial specu-
lation or private interest should be mingled in any manner
with the purpose of your visit, I should prefer waiting for a
moment more propitious to the opportunity of an inter-
view.
For one I can speak but for myself. I do not scruple to
say that I have been annoyed, not by the numbers of our
countrymen, but by the abuse some of them have made of
the access which their characters as our countrymen gave
them to our house. The principle upon which I declined
communicating information even of an indifferent nature to
you has prescribed to me the same reserve towards all others.
If it has not prevented stock jobbing and Jew-brokering
tricks upon the Royal Exchange, it has at least preserved
me from being in any manner accessory to them. By in-
forming you of the time of my departure from this place I
" I do most cordially wish that your anticipations of the probable restoration to
influence of a great statesman [Romanzoff], the friend of his country and of ours,
may be realized. But whether in or out of power, I beg you whenever you may
have the occasion to see him, to offer him the assurance of my respectful remem-
: all confidants of princes with whom I have ever been in official or per-
sonal relations, he is the man who has left upon my mind the deepest impression
uind judgment, of honorable principles, and of truly courteous deportment,
turc destiny or my own may be, these will be the sentiments that
:.im." To Levett Harris, September n, 1814. Ms.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 139
should not disclose a state secret, but I should not even de-
serve the compliment which Hotspur makes to his wife's
powers of retention in expressing his belief that
she will not utter what she does not know.
I do most heartily rejoice at seeing the Canadian general
order declaring the release of all the hostages on both sides
who had been the victims of the lex talionis. And would to
God that all other objections would be removed as success-
fully as those to that convention have been! I trust we
shall see no embowelling for the encouragement of Patriotism.
I am etc.
TO WILLIAM HARRIS CRAWFORD
Ghent, 14 September, 1814.
Dear Sir:
Your favor of the 6th instant was received by me on the
nth. Mine of the 29th ultimo had been the same length
of time reaching you. I know not how it happens that the
post takes five days in passing between this place and Paris.
Travellers come and go easily in two days.
I tender you many thanks for the copy of your note. If
it be the leading policy of the French government to main-
tain a system of neutrality in the war between the United
States and Great Britain,1 it might naturally be expected
that France would manifest some appearance of adhering
1 "The leading policy of this government is to preserve a strict neutrality, if it is
possible; if this cannot be done the departure from that policy will be against us. The
national feeling is decidedly in our favor. It is impossible to foresee what influence
this fact will have upon the government. The arrogance of our enemy will operate
powerfully in aid of this national feeling." William H. Crawford to John Quincy
Adams, September 6, 18 14. Ms. The italics represent cypher.
,40 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
• the rights of neutrality. In exacting that France and all
the allies should abandon all retrospective consideration of
British practices upon the ocean during the late war, I
annot imagine that the British government has bespoken
acquiescence of them all to her future operations. If
nee is prepared to adopt as the ruling maxim of her policy
that she is never again to have war with England, she may
now look on coolly while the British paper blockade cuts off
all her commerce as a neutral state with us. But if she and
Russia now formally abandon all pretension to maritime
rights, they will certainly give us a very substantial reason
for not being very solicitous about them hereafter, when the
violations of them may be not so convenient to themselves.
We have not yet the cards to take leave from the British
plenipotentiaries. There is some reason for expecting they
will come next week. I trust you will duly appreciate the
paragraphs in the English newspapers which ascribe delay
to us, and prate about their demanding answers from us
within twenty-four hours. The rupture in fact took place
on the 25th ultimo, when we sent them our answer to their
first note. Everything that they have done since (and how
long they may thus amuse themselves and the world, I
know not) has been arrant trifling, or to use a vulgar phrase
of your neighborhood de la poudre aux moineaux. . . .
I am highly gratified at the view taken by you of our
future prospects in the struggle which we are called upon to
s through, and if your spirit animates the general mass of
<>ur countrymen, we have nothing to fear with respect to
the final issue of the war. For my own part I cannot imagine
a possible state of the world for futurity in which the United
shall not be a great naval and military power. Be-
tween that and the dissolution of the Union there is no
alternative. I fear it is also certain that we never shall lay
l8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 141
the foundation of a great military power but in a time of war.
It must be forced upon us. And as we have begun and made
some progress in it already, I doubt whether we shall ever
have again so favorable an opportunity for accommodating
our permanent political system to it as the present. If we
could even now make a peace eligible in itself, we should
come out of the war with a tarnished military reputation
upon the land, which would injure our national character
more than years of war. The only temper that honors a
nation is that which rises in proportion to the pressure upon
it. It is to their conduct in the crisis now impending that
our posterity hereafter will look back with pride or with
shame, and I trust our enemies will find our country in the
day of trial true to herself.
I take the liberty of inclosing a letter for General La-
fayette, and remain etc.
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, September 16, 1814.
. . . Mr. Goulburn was still more explicit with Mr.
Clay. He told him that they had sent our last note to
England the same evening that they had received it, and
expected the answer on Monday or Tuesday next, which he
had no doubt would be that we must fight it out. Now as they
will not give us our dismission until they have given us
their dinner, I calculate upon Tuesday as the day when we
shall agree to part. . . .
It is remarkable that the British plenipotentiaries, who in
the case of our former note had first answered it, and then
sent their answer to England for approbation, have now
sent our note itself, without undertaking to answer it them-
I4a THE WRITINGS OF [1814
selves. If the British government wish further delay, it is
their power to make it as they did before. In that case
ir next note will require another answer from us, and
haps another messenger to England before the conclu-
q. So that I cannot yet predict with perfect certainty
the day of my departure.
There has been in the English ministerial and opposition
papers some sparring upon the question whether the negotia-
tion at Ghent was or was not broken off. The Times says
that nobody knows, and nobody but the traders cares any-
thing about it. Our British friends appear to be a little
nettled at certain hints in the Morning Chronicle, that
irritating language had been used at one of our conferences,
and that their former dinner to us was for the purpose of
making it up. The last part of this statement is not cor-
rect, and there is a mistake of the day with regard to the
first part. Irritating things were one day said by them,
and our notes have undoubtedly contained expressions
irritating to them; but ours were necessary and theirs were
not. On neither side has there been, or will there be, any
apology for them. . . .*
"From what I have seen of the American ministers and what has passed be-
<n us, I do not believe that they will, under the present circumstances of the
war (they say they will not under any circumstances), consent to the definition of
rmancnt boundary to the Indian territory within their limits. I believe that
■position to this effect is even more offensive to them than that for the
military occupation of the Lakes. They have sought opportunities of stating it as
inadmissible; and it was only yesterday [at a dinner given by the Americans. See
. Menu irs, III. 35] that Mr. Clay stated his belief that even if America
were to accede to our proposition, and if the Eastern States were cordially to unite
•at Britain in endeavouring to enforce it, their united efforts would be in-
o restrain that part of the American population which is to the westward
Mleghany from encroaching upon the Indian territory and gradually expel-
the aboriginal inhabitants. Their objection to our proposition is not founded
i a <>f territory already settled by American citizens, but
D its invading the right which they claim to extend their population over the
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 143
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, September 23, 1814.
. . . Since Tuesday we have been most assiduously en-
gaged in preparing a reply to the last note we have re-
ceived,1 which I think will not be sent before next Monday.
It is the opinion of Mr. Gallatin that this will be our last
communication, and I should expect so myself, if I had not
been twice before disappointed in the same expectation.
Hitherto all the proceedings of the other party have been
calculated to make delay, and to avoid the rupture of the
negotiation for the present. They first assumed the tone
of dictating a preliminary which we immediately rejected.
Then they sent us sixteen pages revoking their first proposal
and at the same time insisting upon it. Now they have
changed its form, absolutely departed from one portion of it,
and expressly declared they will not depart from the other.
In every change of their position, we are obliged to change,
that we may still front them. We have yielded nothing,
whole of the unsettled country. Under these circumstances, I do not deem it
possible to conclude a good peace now, as I cannot consider that a good peace
which would leave the Indians to a dependence on the liberal policy of the United
States. . . .
"In the conversations which I have had with Mr. Clay and Mr. Bayard . . .
I have been fortunate enough to state to them what you think might have been
stated with advantage; but as they proceed upon the principle that Canada never
has been in any danger and can never be endangered by the United States unless
we force them to become a military nation; they consider the mere conclusion of a
peace to be the only security which is necessary. Our national feeling respecting
the abandonment of the Indians and the aggrandizing spirit of America draws
nothing from them but an expression of regret at the existence of such a feeling,
and a statement of the much stronger countervailing feeling on the part of Amer-
ica." Goulburn to Earl Bathurst, September 16, 1814. Wellington, Supplementary
Despatches, IX. 266.
1 Adams, Memoirs, September 20, 18 14.
I44 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
but every new attack we are obliged to meet with a new
defence. From the first instant we saw (most of us at least)
that there was nothing to be done, but I did not see that
- might keep us here as long as they pleased, and that
they felt a wish to keep us here. Although Mr. Gallatin
may therefore judge more correctly than I do, I incline to
the belief that this will not be our last note; that when we
send it, there will be another reference to England, and that
at the end of ten days more we shall have another note to
answer.
There are letters from England saying that one of the
clerks in the British department of foreign affairs has been
dismissed from office, for having divulged some facts respect-
ing the proposals made by the British government at the
Ghent negotiation. That it was further reported that the
note in answer to the first written communication from the
British to the American ministers was very different from
what had been expected; that it was a very able and spirited
ite paper, and that the Privy Council had been assembled
two successive days to deliberate upon its contents. I give
\ < >u this news as I received it, even with the mention of the
able and spirited state paper, because so small a part of it
was of my composition, that I can draw no vanity for any
credit to which it may be considered as entitled. I should
in fact have presented a very different paper, and I am con-
scious with all due humility that the paper sent was much
ire able than the one I had drawn; perhaps too it was
m«>re spirited, for it had not so much of the irritating lan-
guage, which the Morning Chronicle pretends has been used
i 'ii both sides, and for which it asserts we had a special meet-
ing mutually to apologize. . . .
I now despair of getting away from this place before we
shall be overwhelmed with these humiliations. They may,
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 145
however, determine the British government to break us up
a little sooner. Thus we really now stand. We may be dis-
missed in twenty-four hours after we send our next note,
and we may be kept here three months longer, I cannot say
amused, but insulted with one insolent and insidious pro-
posal after another, without having it in our power to break
off with the indignation which we feel. . . .x
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, September 27, 18 14.
... It appears to me to be the policy of the British
government to keep the American war as an object to con-
tinue or to close, according to the events which may occur
in Europe or in America. If so they will neither make peace,
nor break off the negotiation, and the circumstances may be
such as to detain us here the whole winter. Yesterday we
sent the answer to the third note of the British plenipoten-
tiaries, as I wrote you last Friday I expected we should.2
Observe that our conferences have been suspended ever
since the 19th of last month — nearly six weeks; and that all
we have during that interval been discussing is merely pre-
liminary, whether we shall or shall not treat at all upon the
former differences between the two nations. We have not
1 Bathurst intimated to Goulburn the very strong opinion which prevailed in
England against an unsatisfactory peace with America. In using this intimation
Goulburn found Gallatin alone of the American Commissioners "in any degree
sensible, and this perhaps arises from his being less like an American than any of
his colleagues." What pleased Goulburn more was the discovery of an alleged
falsehood on the part of the Americans. The point is immaterial save as it con-
firmed Goulburn that the real object of the war was not maritime rights, but the
conquest of Canada. Goulburn to Bathurst, September 23, 18 14. Wellington,
Supplementary Despatches, IX. 278.
2 Printed in American State Papers, Foreign Relations, III. 719.
146 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
yet come to the real objects of negotiation. Mr. Gallatin
now inclines to the opinion that this will not be our last
communication. I have suggested a proposal to which my
o illeagues have assented, and in our present note it has been
made.1 They think it will be accepted, and if it is, the nego-
tiation will proceed, and the conferences probably be re-
sumed. If it is not accepted, I hope it will at least bring
to a point which will prevent further dilatory proceedings.
We are still unanimous in the grounds we take. Our ad-
versaries have hitherto taken ten days to answer each of our
m tes, and we have answered each of theirs in five. But in
truth we have to deal not only with the three plenipoten-
tiaries, one of whom was amply sufficient for five American
negotiators, but with the whole British Privy Council, who
have taken cognizance of every one of our communications,
and have prescribed the answer to them. Our joint notes
have hitherto been principally composed by Mr. Gallatin
and myself, the other gentlemen altering, erasing, amending,
and adding to what we write, as they think proper. We
then in a general meeting adapt together the several parts
of each draft to be retained, discard what is thought proper
to be rejected, criticise and retouch until we are all weary of
our conduct, and then have the fair copy drawn off to be
tit to the Chartreux, the residence of the British plenipo-
tentiaries.
In this process about seven-eighths of what I write, and
one-half of what Mr. Gallatin writes is struck out. The
n of the difference is that his composition is argumenta-
tive, and mine is declamatory. He is always perfectly cool,
" I also made the proposal of offering to the British an article including the
Indians in the nature of an amnesty; for which I thought we should be warranted
t 1 11 to endeavor to obtain an amnesty for the Canadians who have
1 part with us." Adams, Memoirs, September 20 and 23, 1814.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 147
and I, in the judgment of my colleagues, am often more than
temperately warm. The style of the papers we receive is
bitter as the quintessence of wormwood — arrogant, dicta-
torial, insulting — and we pocket it all with the composure of
the Athenian who said to his adversary, "Strike, but hear!"
Now in all this tranquillity of endurance I fully acquiesce,
because it may be more politic to suppress than to exhibit
our just indignation. But when I first write I indulge my
own feelings, well knowing that the castigation my draft
has to pass through will strip it of all its inflammable matter.
It happens sometimes also that I have views of the subject
in discussion not acceptable to some of my colleagues, and
not deemed important by others. There is much more
verbal criticism used with me too, than with any other mem-
ber of the mission, and even if you had been inclined to
gratify me with a compliment upon my talent at writing,
I have it too continually disproved by the successive dem-
olition of almost every sentence I write here, to permit
myself to be elated by your partiality. The result of all this
is, that the tone of all our papers is much more tame than I
should make it, if I were alone, and yet the English gazettes
pretend that we have taken it high and spirited. On the
other hand I am thought sometimes to go too far in conces-
sion; to give the adversary advantages in the argument
which might be inconvenient, and to speak of the British
nation in terms which might gratify their pride. All such
passages are inexorably excluded. All this winnowing and
sifting would be of the highest advantage to myself, if I was
at the improving period of life. At present I consider its
principal advantage to be that it effectually guards against
the ill-effect of my indiscretions.1 Mr. Gallatin keeps and
increases his influence over us all. It would have been an
1 Adams, Memoirs, September 23, 1814.
I48 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
irreparable loss if our country had been deprived of the
benefit of his talents in this negotiation. . . -1
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, October 4, 18 14.
When this comes to your hands the contents of
my letter of 16 August will probably be no longer in your
recollection, but as you keep the file, turn to it, with the
remembrance that on that very day, 16 August, the whole
of Cochrane's fleet assembled in the Chesapeake for the
expedition against Washington; and that on the ninth day
afterwards, the Capitol, the President's House, the public
offices, and the navy yard were destroyed.2 Remember too
1 "The British plenipotentiaries have again sent our note to England, as we
supposed they would. They expect the answer next Monday or Tuesday. Their
tour of duty appears to be much easier than ours. For since the conference of
9 August they have had little or nothing else to do than to seal up and open dis-
patches. The extent of their authority is to perform the service of a post-office
between us and the British Privy Council. If they get the news of their troops
having taken Washington or Baltimore before they transmit to us their next note
they may perhaps undertake to dismiss us. If not they may prepare for us ma-
terials for another note. I wrote you that they did not accept our invitation for a
tea party last evening, but went to Antwerp, I suppose purposely to avoid it."
To Louisa Catherine Adams, September 30, 1814. Ms.
: ( h\ the 23d, Liverpool could write to Castlereagh: "The forces under Sir Alex-
ander Cochrane and General Ross were most actively employed upon the coast of
the I'nitcd States, creating the greatest degree of alarm and rendering the govern-
ment very unpopular. We may hope, therefore, that if the American government
lould prove themselves so unreasonable as to reject our proposals as they have
. 'dificd, they will not long be permitted to administer the affairs of the
country, particularly as their military efforts have in no way corresponded with the
hi^h tone in which they attempt to negotiate." Wellington, Supplementary Des-
'■' . IX. 279. On September 27 Bathurst gave intelligence of "a signal suc-
- the "destruction of the American flotilla, and the capture and occupa-
i for a time of the city of Washington." An "Extraordinary Gazette" was
.Mic day.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 149
that this was only the beginning of sorrows; the lightest of
a succession of calamities through which our country must
pass, and by which all the infirmities and all the energies of
its character will be brought to light.
In itself the misfortune at Washington is a trifle. The loss
of lives amounts scarcely to the numbers every day sacrificed
in a skirmish between two regiments of soldiers. The loss
of property cannot exceed the expenses of one month of war.
The removal of the seat of government necessitated by the
event may prove a great benefit rather than a disadvantage
to the nation. The weakness manifested in the defense of
Washington is the circumstance calculated to excite the
greatest concern, and is the more to be lamented as its
causes may be expected to operate on other occasions, and
"I can assure you that these considerations will make no difference in our anx-
ious desire to put an end to the war if it can be done consistently with our honour,
and upon such terms as we are fairly entitled to expect. The notes of our commis-
sioners at Ghent will, I think, sufficiently prove the moderation of our views. I
am satisfied that if peace is made on the conditions we have proposed, we shall be
very much abused for it in this country; but I feel too strongly the inconvenience
of a continuance of the war not to make me desirous of concluding it at the ex-
pense of some popularity; and it is a satisfaction to reflect that our military success
will at least divest the peace of anything which could affect our national charac-
ter. ... In any conversation which you may have with the King of France
or with his Ministers, you will not fail to advert to this circumstance, and to do
justice to the moderation with which we are disposed to act towards them [the
United States]." Liverpool to the Duke of Wellington, September 27, 18 14. Welling-
ton, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 290. To Castlereagh he added, "I fear the
Emperor of Russia is half an American; and it would be very desirable to do away
any prejudice which may exist in his mind, or in that of Count Nesselrode, on this
subject." lb., 291. Wellington, finding that the military successes of the British
in the United States "were canvassed in a very unfair manner in the public news-
papers, and had increased the ill temper and rudeness" shown to British in Paris,
did inform the French Minister of the state of the negotiation at Ghent. "Mon-
sieur de Jaucourt expressed great disgust at the state of the daily press at Paris at
present; and assured me that what had been published on the subject of our opera-
tions in America had made no impression on the King's mind." Wellington to
Castlereagh, October 4, 1814. lb., 3 14.
i^o
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
to produce other effects still more disastrous. There is
perhaps no use in foreseeing calamities which it is not in our
power either to prevent or to remedy; but on this occasion
I find myself less affected by what has happened in conse-
quence of the state of preparation to which I had formed
in>- mind in looking forward to what it was but too obvious
must happen . . .
In the present state of things the only circumstance within
our power is to have our minds generally prepared for any-
thing that may happen. But the misfortune that may befall
us will probably not be that which we foresee. Let me how-
ever say, because it may afford you some relief and consola-
tion, that the personal dangers of our particular friends and
relations are much less than they were before this last event.
Washington may be henceforth considered as the place of
the United States the most secure from an attack of the
enemy. Boston is still exposed and our property there may
share the fate of the Capitol.1 But in the perils of the coun-
try I scarcely think it worth a thought what may befall my
individual interests. Our children and other relations near
Boston are in no danger but that which menaces the whole
country; and Cochrane's proclamation will not I imagine
produce any other effect against us than to tempt perhaps
some hundreds of negroes to run away from their masters.
If I could correctly judge of the effect upon the feelings
of our nation of this transaction by those which it has pro-
duced among the Americans we have here, I should look
upon it as a blessing rather than a calamity. The sentiment
.! old friend, Mr. R. B. Forbes, has just been to visit me. He is come to
I '■ tersburg on his way to Ghent, and expects to return to America. He says Boston
rablc to live in; that his family are most of them high Essex Junto,
and that it is hardly possible to walk in the streets without getting into quarrels.
This is a delightful picture of our town!" Louisa Catherine Adams to John Quincy
Adams, September 13, 1614. Ms.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 151
is the same among us all. It is profound, anxious, and true
to the honor and interest of our country. It is a sentiment
which if generally felt by the people of the United States
will rouse them to exertion. Let that effect be produced
and they have as a people nothing to fear from the power of
Great Britain. If it cannot be produced they are not fit to
bear the character of an independent nation, and have
nothing better to do than to take the oath of allegiance to
the maniac [George III]. Congress were to assemble on the
19th of September. From this time until mid-winter every
breeze will bring us tidings fraught with the deepest interest
to our hearts. In the severe visitation of a chastening provi-
dence I will not abandon the hope that its mercies will be
mingled with its judgments.
We have not yet received the reply of the British pleni-
potentiaries, or rather of the British Privy Council, to our
last note. As the time has now come for which they have
been trifling and equivocating those six months to keep up
what one of their own newspapers calls the idle and hopeless
farce of this negotiation, I wish that the impression of their
success upon them may be to fix the determination of break-
ing it up. There can be no possible advantage to us in con-
tinuing it any longer. . . .
TO WILLIAM HARRIS CRAWFORD
Ghent, 5 October, 18 14.
My Dear Sir:
Mr. Boyd arrived here on the 29th ultimo with his dis-
patches, and with your letters of the 25th to the mission,
and to Mr. Gallatin and myself. After his arrival I received
your two favors of the 24th by the post.
I5:
THE WRITINGS OF [i8i<
The important news from America is just beginning to
come in. Since Mr. Boyd's arrival, we have had successively
• accounts of the abortive attack on Fort Erie of 15th Au-
gust, and of the too successful attack on Washington of the
;nd 25th. The trial of our national spirit anticipated
in my letter of 29 August had even then commenced by that
vandalic exploit. Its result has illustrated in colors much
too glaring the remark I then made, that our statesmen ap-
peared not to have formed a just estimate of our condition.
I have never for an instant believed that peace would be
practicable by the negotiation here. Mr. Clay is the only
one among us who has occasionally entertained hopes that
it might be. The proceedings of the British government
since the delivery of their first sine qua non have sometimes
strongly countenanced Mr. Clay's opinion, and the deference
I have for his judgment leads me to distrust in this case my
own. I believe the sole object of Britain in protracting our
stay here is to impose both upon America and upon Europe,
while she may glut all her vindictive passions and bring us
to terms of unconditional submission.
We shall probably in the course of a few days make you a
joint and confidential communication upon this subject.
The purposes of our enemy have undoubtedly a relation to
France and to other European powers, and it may be ex-
pedient to put them upon their guard against the British
misrepresentations, of which they make this "idle and
hopeless farce" the instrument for views not less hostile to
them than to us.1 I am etc.
" I lave in some of my letters said, that if any reliance could be placed upon the
sincerity "f the British ministry, a peace is not impracticable. This declaration
made before 1 knew their last ultimatum. That paper strengthens this con-
tural opinion; but still I agree with you that peace is an improbable result. I
;<>nfidencc in their sincerity. If they make peace upon the basis now pro-
.: will be because they have been wholly disappointed in the result of the
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 153
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, October 7, 1814.
. . . The newspapers contain a great variety of details
respecting the fall of Washington and the destruction of
buildings and of property, public and private, effected by
the enemy. The whole transaction is much more disgrace-
ful to the British than it is injurious to us. The destruction
of the Capitol, the President's house, the public offices, and
many private houses is contrary to all the usages of civilized
nations, and is without example even in the wars that have
been waged during the French Revolution. There is scarcely
a metropolis in Europe that has not been taken in the course
of the last twenty years. There is not a single instance in
all that time of public buildings like those being destroyed.
The army of Napoleon did indeed blow up the Kremlin at
Moscow, but that was a fortified castle, and even thus the
campaign. It has afforded me the most heartfelt satisfaction to find myself mis-
taken. The campaign has been much more successful than I had anticipated.
The aspect of affairs now is highly consolatory and encouraging. . . . Ad-
mitting that the objects for which the war is to be prosecuted may embrace con-
cessions which will be gratifying to the "[British] national pride and beneficial to
their naval superiority, yet it cannot fail to occur to the thinking part of the nation
that these concessions, if obtained, must be temporary in their enjoyment. They
must be sensible that the moment is rapidly approaching when the shackles which
force may have imposed, will by force be broken. That it is indeed possible that
this period may arrive even before they have derived any benefit from it. For it
is only when she is belligerent that these concessions will be useful to her. Should
she therefore remain twenty years at peace, she will have prosecuted this war for
the advancement of objects, which the greatest possible success could alone give
her, and eventually derive no benefit from them. In that time we shall be able in
conjunction with her adversary to shake off the unequal and hard conditions which
she may have imposed upon us. For myself, I agree entirely with you, that we
shall have a good peace, if the war is prosecuted a year or two longer." William
H. Crawford to John Quincy Adams, October 26, 1814. Ms.
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
1 3+
act has ever been and ever will be stigmatized as one of the
t infamous of his deeds.
It has indeed been conformable to the uniform experience
, : mankind that no wars are so cruel and unrelenting as
civil wars; and unfortunately every war between Britain
and America must and will be a civil war, or at least will
bear most of its peculiar characters. The ties of society
between the two nations are far more numerous than be-
tween any two other nations upon earth. They are almost
as numerous as if they continued to be what even in our day
they have been, under the same government. But whenever
these ties are burst asunder by war, the conflicting passions
of the parties are multiplied and exasperated in the same
proportion. In the moral as well as the physical world the
principles of repulsion are exactly proportioned to those of
attraction. We must therefore expect that the excesses of
war committed by the British against us will be more out-
rageous than those they are guilty of against any other peo-
ple, and we must be neither surprised nor dejected at finding
them to be so. The same British officers who boast in their
dispatches of having blown up the legislative hall of Congress
and the dwelling house of the President, would have been
ashamed of the act instead of glorying in it, had it been done
in any European city. The exultation at this event in
England is just such as to prove that the passions of malice
and envy and revenge, which prompted their military and
naval officers to this exploit are prevailing universally
throughout the nation. The Times and the Courier rave
and foam at the mouth about it. The Morning Chronicle,
to justify the destruction of the Capitol and other public
buildings, calls it a mitigated retaliation for some private
houses burnt by our troops in Canada. But Lewiston,
Frenchtown, Havre de Grace, Hampton, and many other
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 155
scenes of British barbarism and brutality preceded any ir-
regular act of that nature on our part. The first example of
every savage feature in the war has been shown by the
British. The feelings excited by such atrocities among our
people could not be restrained: they retaliated, and now the
British retaliate upon retaliation. In this contest of fero-
cious and relentless fury we shall ultimately fall short of the
British, because we have not so much of the tiger in our
composition. A very strong evidence of this has been shown
in the history of the destruction of Washington. It seems
that after having effected their purpose, the terror of the
British was so great of being cut off in their retreat, and their
flight was so precipitate, that they left their own dead un-
buried on the fields, and their own wounded as prisoners at
the mercy of the very people whose public edifices and
private habitations they had been consuming by fire. If
those wounded prisoners have not been gibbeted on the trees
between Bladensburg and Washington, to fatten the region
kites, and to swing as memorials of British valor and human-
ity, it has not been because the provocation to such treat-
ment was insufficient, but because it belongs to our national
character to relent into mercy towards a vanquished and
defenceless enemy. . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, October 11, 1814.
. . . And now, the chances are of our being confined
here, if not the whole winter, at least several weeks and
probably months longer. On Saturday [8] evening came a
note of fifteen pages again, hot from the British Privy Coun-
cil; for the plenipotentiaries have no other duty as it would
k6
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
seem to perform than that of engrossing clerks. This note
is in the same domineering and insulting style as all those
that have preceded it, but it contains much more show of
argument, falsehoods less liable to immediate and glaring
exposure, misrepresentations more sheltered from instant
detection, and sophistry generally more plausible than they
had thought it worth while to take the trouble of putting
into the former notes. The essential part of it is, however,
that they have abandoned almost every thing of their pre-
vious demands which made it impossible for us to listen to
them, and have now offered as their ultimatum an article of
a 0 (tally different description.1 You can conceive with what
kind of grace they retreat from nine-tenths of their ground
when you know that they take care to hint that at this stage
ojthc ziar, their concession must be taken for magnanimity.
What we shall do with this article I cannot yet pronounce;
but the prospect is that we shall have many other points to
discuss, and as their object of wasting time has now be-
come manifest beyond all possible doubt, there is less ap-
pi arance than at any former period of the immediate and
abrupt termination of our business. The accounts from
America and the progress of affairs in Europe have hitherto
i in a copious and uninterrupted stream favorable to
their policy in the conduct of this negotiation. That such
would be the course of events it was impossible to foresee.
M\ 1 >wn expectation was that in the exultation and insolence
df their success they would have broken it off upon the
grounds first taken by them in such a peremptory manner,
and which we decisively rejected. It appears, however, that
■iurst sent to the British Commissioners, October 5, a "projet" of an
article on Indian pacification. His accompanying instructions are in Letters and
Dtspatchts of Lord Castlereagh, X. 148. See American State Papers, Foreign Rela-
III. 721.
l8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 157
the British ministers have not shared in all the delusions of
their populace in regard to their late achievement at Wash-
ington. They are perfectly aware that as injury to us it
scarcely deserves to be named as an important occurrence
of war; that as national humiliation its tendency is to unite
all parties in our country against them, to exasperate all the
passions of our people, and to create that very energy of
defence which it so effectually proved to be wanting. They
were so much elated by the event that they had their Gazette
accounts of it translated into all the principal languages and
transmitted to every part of Europe; but the sensation pro-
duced by it upon the continent, so far as we have had the
opportunity of remarking it, has been by no means creditable
to them — the destruction of public buildings of no character
connected with war, that of private dwelling houses, the
robbery of private property, and the precipitate flight of
their troops leaving their wounded officers and men at the
mercy of the people whom they had so cruelly outraged,
tells by no means to their glory. Here we have heard but
one sentiment expressed upon the subject — that of unquali-
fied detestation. But here the English are universally
hated; the people dare not indeed openly avow their senti-
ments, but we hear them — "curses not loud but deep."
In France the public sentiment has been more openly ex-
pressed. In two of the daily journals of Paris l remarks
equally forcible and just upon the atrocious character of
this transaction have been published, and even in some of
the London newspapers and magazines a feeble and timid
expostulation has appeared against deeds paralleled only
by the most execrable barbarities of the French revolution-
ary fury, or by the Goths and Vandals of antiquity. A de-
1 Journal des Debats, reprinted in the Courier, October 6, and the Journal de
Paris, reprinted in the Courier, October 10.
j. 8 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
fence as despicable as the actions it attempts to justify has
been brought forward in one of the English newspapers; »
and its only artifice is to diminish the infamy by depreciating
the importance of this vaunted exploit. They are com-
pelled to urge how small and insignificant the distinction
was which they could accomplish to ward off the shame of
having destroyed everything in their power. The Capitol,
they now say was only an unfinished building; the President's
house was properly demolished because the scoundrel Madi-
son had lived in it, and to be sure they could not be blamed
for having destroyed a navy yard. Let them lay this flatter-
ing unction to their soul. The ruins of the Capitol and other
public buildings at Washington will remain monuments of
British barbarism, beyond the reach of British destruction,
when nothing of their oppressive power will be left but the
memory of how much it was abused. . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, October 14, 18 14.
. . . We this day send our answer to the fourth note
from the British plenipotentiaries: the note, as I have told
you, is by far the most labored, the best written, and the
most deserving of a complete and solid answer, of any one
that we have received from them. The peculiarity of its
character is, that in giving up almost every thing for which
they have contended as a preliminary, they finally insist
upon some thing that I am very unwilling to yield, and they
dwell with bitterness and at great length upon unfounded
vl most insidious charges against the American govern-
ment. I have acquiesced in the determination of my col-
1 The Courier, October 6, 1814.
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 159
leagues to yield on the particular point now required by the
British as their ultimatum.1 They think we concede by it
little or nothing. I think the concession so great that I
should have been prepared to break off rather than give it
up. But the ground upon which I differ from them the most
is, that they are for giving the go-by to all the offensive and
insulting part of the British note; for not replying at all to
much of it, and for giving a feeble and hesitating answer to
the remainder. My principle would have been to meet
every one of their charges directly in the face; to report upon
them without hesitation, both of which we might do with
the strictest truth and justice; and to maintain as we have
done hitherto a tone as peremptory as theirs. All this we
might have done, and yet finally have conceded the point
upon which the continuation of the negotiation now hinges.
But the other policy has been thought more advisable.
In making the concession it is thought best to consider and
represent it as a trifle, or indeed as nothing at all; and that
it may have its full effect of conciliation, it is concluded to
say very little upon the other topics in the note, to decline
all discussion that would lengthen our answer, and above all
to avoid every thing having a tendency to irritate. I sub-
mit to this decision; but I think it will not be long before we
discover that our enemy is not of a temper to be propitiated
either by yielding or by shrinking; and my greatest concern
is that when we have once began to yield and to shrink,
there is no knowing where and when we shall be again pre-
pared to make a stand. I sacrifice however the more readily
my opinion to that of my colleagues in this case, because
they are unanimous in theirs, and because they promise me
not only that they will not yield anything of essential im-
portance hereafter, but that they will both parry and
1 The pacification of the Indians.
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
thrust, if it finally comes to a rupture, with as much earnest-
ness, and with more vigor than I should wish them to do
.
It must indeed have been for some of my own sins or for
those of my country, that I have been placed here to treat
with the injustice and insolence of Britain, under a succes-
sion of such news as every breeze is wafting from America.
When Napoleon took Moscow Alexander declared to the
w< .rid, that he would drain the last dregs of the cup of bitter-
s, rather than subscribe to a peace dishonorable to his
Kmpire. We have told the British government that we will,
if necessary, imitate this illustrious example. They have
taken our Capitol. They have destroyed its public, and
many of its private buildings, and the information is brought
to us at one of the critical moments of the negotiation. This
1 he point of time at which we are required to bind or to
break. We have chosen to bind. Not so did Alexander.
May we be more fortunate in our imitation of his example
hen-after.
The taking of Washington, to use an expression of Boyd's,
has started our timbers. Lawrence's last words, which you
tell me you did not know, were "Don't give up the ship." The
ship was given up, not by him, but in consequence of his
mortal wound. It was in the agony of death, when all
use and sentiment of the fatal reality were fled, that his
heroic soul took wing for eternity, still dwelling on the image
<■! his duty to his country, still cheering his companions to
the defence of their trust. Now you can judge whether
there was any meaning in the toast, when it was given.
! if every American were a Lawrence; what should we
have t<» fear from all the malice backed by all the power of
Britain :
The feeling of the outrage upon the laws of war at Wash-
i8i41 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 161
ington will be deep and lasting. The Chevalier says it ought
never to be forgotten. That it should make every American
take his children to the altar, and swear them to eternal
hatred of England. I do not go so far in the theory as the
Chevalier; but I am charmed to find him on this occasion
American to the quick. The day before yesterday we had
a tete-a-tete after dinner over a bottle of Chambertin, till
ten o'clock at night. He was perfectly friendly and confi-
dential. He reasoned with all the clearness and all the en-
ergy of his mind. I heartily concurred with all his principles.
I could not resist his persuasions with regard to the point
upon which we were laboring. I finally came down to the
prevailing sentiment of the mission. God grant that its
result may be an honorable peace.
At all events it will probably detain us several weeks
longer, for you know that we are in substance yet to begin
the negotiation. Hitherto we have only been discussing
whether we should treat at all. May it please God to forgive
our enemies, and to turn their hearts!
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, October 18, 1814.
... In the meantime we continue to be watching the
movements of the political weathercock in the British
Cabinet. Our note, which as I wrote you, was sent to the
plenipotentiaries last Friday, was dispatched by them the
next day to England. We cannot expect a reply to it before
next Monday, and I have now no hopes that it will finish
our business. We must drink the cup of bitterness to the
dregs. The chances are about even that we shall pass half
the winter here, or at least until all the great arrangements
i62 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
at Vienna shall be completed. The Congress of Vienna I
have no doubt will prolong the general peace in Europe, but
if it is to finish in six weeks all its business, it may be ques-
tioned whether it will settle this continent very firmly on its
new foundations. There is some fermentation yet in France,
where in the midst of grave deliberations about the liberty
the press, half a dozen printers of pamphlets have just
been arrested. The author of one of those pamphlets is
not,1 who would also have been arrested, but for the
fear of producing too strong a sensation. On the other
hand, Mr. Chateaubriand has become a government writer,
and there is a long article composed by him published in the
Journal des Debats, and now circulating over Europe,2 on
the happiness of France since the restoration of the Bour-
bons. He proposes that Louis le Desire should be called
1. mis le Sage. It is rather early to pronounce him so em-
phatically wise, but in the acts of his government hitherto
there has generally been a character of discretion well suited
to his situation. Bonaparte had made a strong and ener-
getic government so odious by the excess to which he carried
it, that Louis has only to discern how far it may be relaxed,
and where he must stop, that it may not degenerate into
the opposite vice of weakness. This appears to be precisely
the object of his endeavors, and although many of his meas-
ures must under this system be experimental, and many of
his experiments unsuccessful, he has yet undertaken nothing
which could have a serious effect in shaking the stability of
his authority; and when he has found himself running foul
he public opinion, he has always prudently and season-
ably j ielded to it.
I great difficulty for him will be to manage the army,
1 M/moire addresse au Roi, 1814.
1 Dt Huonaparte ft des Bourbons, 1814.
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 163
and to check their martial propensity. They have been
deeply humiliated without being humbled. They have all
the pride of their former successes, with the galling sensation
of their late disasters. They look with a longing eye to their
former chief, who is now but a shadow; and unfortunately
for the Bourbons there is no other leader who has any as-
cendancy over them, and who could draw their tottering
allegiance to himself. The king has pursued the policy of
his own interest, by showering his favors upon the marshals,
without suffering himself to be infected by their passion
for war. . . .
TO WILLIAM HARRIS CRAWFORD
Ghent, 18 October, 18 14.
Dear Sir:
I had the pleasure of writing to you on the 5th instant,
since which Mr. Gallatin has received your favor of the 6th,
forwarded from Lille by Mr. Baker, who was detained there
by illness. Mr. Boyd will be the bearer of this.
Since I wrote you last, the negotiation here has apparently
taken a turn which induces a postponement of the joint com-
munication which I then gave you reason to expect. I am
convinced with you that Great Britain keeps this negotia-
tion open to further views of policy which she is promoting
at Vienna; but I think she has the further object of availing
herself of the impression she expects to make in America
during the present campaign, and of the terrors she is hold-
ing out for the next.1 As our remaining here must have a
tendency to countenance weakness and indecision on the
1 See Bathurst to the British Commissioners, October 18, 1814, in Letters and
Despatches of Lord Castlereagh, X. 168.
I ■ , THE WRITINGS OF [1814
other side of the Atlantic, I sincerely regret that the negotia-
ii. >n lias not yet been brought to a close. But to close it has
• been in our power. That is to say, there has never been
a moment when we should have been justified in breaking
it could have shown to the world the real policy of
•at Britain. By referring every communication from us
to their government before they replied to it the British
plenipotentiaries have done their part to consume time, and
b) varying their propositions upon every answer from us
their government have done the same. We have at length
accepted their article, and asked them for their projet of a
treaty. We expect their reply on Monday or Tuesday next.
The present aspect is of a continuance of the negotiation,
and we are not warranted in saying to France or Russia,
that we believe nothing will come of it. We are all ready
enough to indulge hopes, but I see no reason for changing
the belief that we have constantly entertained. My only
apprehension from delay is that the firmness of our councils
at home may not be kept up to the tone which has charac-
ized them heretofore. If they stand the test we shall have
ii' > peace now, but a very good one hereafter. I am etc.
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, October 25, 18 14.
... On Saturday last [22] we received from the Brit-
ish Commissioners a note l more distinctly marked than
any of those that had preceded it, with the intention of
wasting time, without coming to any result. We sent them
our answer to it yesterday.2 We have again endeavored to
1 Primal in Imrrican State Papers, Foreign Relations, III. 724.
»/*., 7*5
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 165
bring them to a serious discussion of the objects in contro-
versy between the two countries; but their government (for
they do nothing themselves but sign and transmit papers)
have apparently no other aim but to protract the negotia-
tion. Since the late news from America they have totally
changed their grounds; they now come forward with new
inadmissible pretensions. We have rejected them as ex-
plicitly as we did those they first advanced, and we have
told them that further negotiation will be useless if they
persist in them. Our note of yesterday, I suppose like all the
rest, will go to England for an answer,1 but I do not expect
that it will yet produce any thing decisive. The chance of
peace is in my opinion more desperate than ever, for it is now
ascertained that they will raise their demands upon every
petty success that they obtain in America, and it is but too
certain that they must yet obtain many, far greater and more
important than those hitherto known. While they are
sporting with us here, they are continually sending rein-
forcements and new expeditions to America. I do not and
will not believe that the spirit of my countrymen will be
subdued by anything that the British forces can accomplish;
but they must go through the trial, and be prepared at least
for another year of desolating war. . . .
1 It was sent to London on the day of receipt, "for the information of His Majes-
ty's Government, requesting at the same time their directions for our future pro-
ceedings." British Commissioners to Castlereagh, October 24, 1814. Ms.
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
TO ABIGAIL ADAMS
Ghent, 25 October, 18 14. Tuesday
My Beloved Mother:
This is the day of jubilee! the fiftieth year since your
marriage is completed! By the blessing of Heaven my dear
father can look back to all the succession of years since that
time with the conscious recollection that it was a happy day.
The same pleasing remembrance I natter myself is yours;
and may that gracious being who has hitherto conducted
you together through all the vicissitudes of an eventful life
-till watch over you! Still reserve for you many years of
health and comfort and of mutual happiness! . . .
It is much to be lamented that such earnest and sanguine
expectations of peace have been entertained in America
from the present negotiation. The desire of peace, though
in itself proper and laudable, was unfortunately in the cir-
cumstances of our country and of the times the greatest
obstacle to its own object. It has been considered by our
enemies that we were or should be prepared to make any
rifice, even of our Union and independence, to obtain it.
I is is not the spirit that will secure peace to us. Peace is
be obtained only as it was after the war of our Revolu-
tion, by manifesting the determination to defend ourselves
to the last extremity. It is not by capitulations like those
of Nantucket and of Washington county in the state of
Ma achusetts, and of Alexandria, that we shall obtain
yv.icr. The capitulation of Alexandria is so inexpressibly
i rueful, that people here who would gladly be friends of
- -ur country ask us whether it is not a forgery of our enemies,
and whether there really existed Americans base enough to
subscribe to such terms? They say that the infamy of sub-
I to them was greater than that of exacting them.
,8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 167
Of peace there is at present no prospect whatever. The
British government have sufficiently disclosed their inten-
tion of reducing again to subjection as large a portion of the
United States as they can occupy. They have taken posses-
sion of our territory as far as Penobscot river, and now they
make no scruple of demanding it.
But it does not appear to be their intention to break up
this negotiation. They keep us here, raising one extravagant
and insulting pretension after another, ready to insist upon
or to recede from it according as they may find their interest
to dictate, or the circumstances to warrant; and here we are
reasoning and expostulating with them, entreating them to
consent to a peace, and above all dreading to break off the
negotiation, because Peace, Peace, is the cry of our country,
and because we cannot endure the idea of disappointing it.
While we have the miniature of a Congress here for the
affairs of England with the United States, there is a great
one at Vienna which is to settle the future destinies of Europe.
There, too, England appears inclined to take the lead and
direction of all affairs; but it is probable that France also
will have something to say in those arrangements. The
Prince of Talleyrand, the French Ambassador there, has
stated in a memorial, that as France has consented to be re-
duced to her dimensions of 1792, it is but justice on her part
to expect that the other great European powers will follow
her example. This declaration appears to have been quite
unexpected, and to have given rise to so many new ideas
among the assembled potentates and ambassadors that it
has been agreed to postpone the opening of the Congress until
the first of November.1
1 In commenting upon a letter of John Quincy Adams to his father, of October 27,
Madison wrote: "Our enemy knowing that he has peace in his own hands, specu-
[( -
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 142. [James Monroe]
Ghent, 25 October, 18 14.
Sir:
Since the departure of the John Adams, we have had no
• opportunity for transmitting dispatches to you, and
this has probably been owing to the detention of the Chaun-
by the agent, and as he states under the instruction of
her owner.
It will probably be known to you that on the outward pas-
sage of this vessel from the United States to Gothenburg,
one of her passengers was sent on board a vessel upon the
coast of Scotland who did not return, but was shortly after-
wards landed in Great Britain. There is reason to believe
that after the arrival of the Chauncey at Gothenburg, the
British consul at that place received an anonymous letter
latcs on the fortune of events. Should those be unfavorable, he can at any moment,
as he supposes, come to our terms. Should they correspond with his hopes, his
demands may be insisted on, or even extended. The point to be decided by our
ministers is, whether during the uncertainty of events, a categorical alternative of
immediate peace, or a rupture of the negotiation, would not be preferable to a
longer acquiescence in the gambling procrastinations of the other party. It may
be presumed that they will before this have pushed the negotiations to this point.
"It i igreeable to find that the superior ability which distinguishes the
of our Em 1 extorts commendation from the most obdurate of their politi-
c-ncmies. An i we have the further satisfaction to learn that the cause they are
leading is beginning to overcome the prejudice which misrepresentations had
■ ■■ r • , otinenl of Kurope against it. The British government is neither
(attentive to this approaching revolution in the public opinion there, nor blind
icy. If it does not find in it a motive to immediate peace, it will infer
: shortening the war by bringing us, the ensuing campaign, what it
qi >t to be resisted by us." Madison to John Adams, Decem-
\ 1814. Writings of Madison (Hunt), VIII. 322.
,8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 169
representing this transaction and circumstances attending
it as a violation of the cartel, of which information was of
course given by the consul to the British Admiralty. Early
in August application was made to the joint mission by a
letter from the captain to Mr. Clay, requesting that we
would obtain a passport for the vessel to return to the United
States. We accordingly asked for the passport by a note
to the British plenipotentiaries, desiring that it might be
transmitted to the captain of the vessel at Gothenburg, and
might include permission to touch at any port of Europe for
our dispatches. The passport was immediately granted,
though I have heard that a previous solicitation to the same
effect through other channels had been rejected.
The vessel arrived at Ostend in the beginning of Septem-
ber, and the captain immediately came here, together with
the person who had been landed in England on the passage
to Gothenburg. The owner's agent had already come on
from Gothenburg, I believe by land. We expected that the
vessel would have immediately proceeded to the United
States, but found the owner's agent was under instructions
which left it doubtful whether she would go at all. After
waiting about five weeks and receiving no answer to our ap-
plications for passports for other vessels to convey our dis-
patches, we thought it necessary to ask the agent for the
Chauncey to return the passport, unless he chose to dispatch
the vessel. He then wrote us a letter stating that it would
be contrary to his instructions from the owner founded on
the agreement with you to send her away, but that being
under the necessity to do that, or to return the passport,
he placed her at our disposal, and she would be ready to
sail at the time mentioned by us which was about this day.
The object of this doubtless is to lay a claim for remunera-
tion from the government. But we could have more op-
,„0 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
portunities than we would want to send dispatches without
any expense to the government, and should probably have
met with no difficulty in obtaining cartels for the purpose,
had it not been known that this vessel after being furnished
with a passport was detained for objects of individual in-
terest to the owner.
We now send you copies of all our official correspondence
with the British plenipotentiaries since the departure of
Mr. Dallas. From their first vote of 19 August, transmitted
by Mr. Dallas to you, and from our conference with them
on the same day which had preceded it, we had supposed it
t- » be the intention of the British government to break off
the negotiation immediately. The conversation of their
ministers after receiving our answer to that note tended at
first to confirm that opinion; but they concluded eventually
to refer to their government before they sent us their reply;
and when that finally came, it afforded a presumption which
everything since has confirmed, that the real object of the
British government was neither to conclude peace nor to
break off the negotiation, but to delay. Of this policy the
advantage was all on their side. They knew that whatever
might happen, a peace honorable and advantageous to them
might be concluded in one week, should the course of events
in Europe or in America render it in their estimate advisable
t>. terminate the war, and they chose to avail themselves of
the advantages which the successes of this campaign in
America would give them, and of the chances either of
permanent tranquillity, or of new troubles in Europe, which
might result from the Congress at Vienna.
Although this policy was sufficiently disclosed to us from
the time when we received the second note of the British
Ministers, we have at the same time perceived that our only
practicable expedient for counteracting it would be to break
l8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 171
off the negotiation on our part. We have deemed this un-
advisable, because we thought the rupture should not pro-
ceed from us, as long as a possibility remained that a just
and honorable peace might be concluded, and because it was
barely possible that the course of events might fix the in-
tentions of the British government in favor of peace. It
will be observed that the sine qua non, upon the admission
of which they at first placed the continuance of the negotia-
tion was already varied in their second note, most essentially
altered in the third, and finally melted down in the fourth
into an article which we have agreed in substance to accept.1
It is also to be noticed that the British plenipotentiaries have
not replied to any one of our notes without a previous refer-
ence to their government, so that there has been always an
interval of eight or ten days between their receipt of a note
from us and our receipt of their answer.
After the consumption of so much time upon mere pre-
liminary discussion, when we accepted the articles we
1 "We owed the acceptance of our Article respecting the Indians to the capture
of Washington; and if we had either burnt Baltimore or held Pittsburgh, I believe
we should have had peace on the terms which you have sent to us in a month at
latest. As things appear to be going on in America, the result of our negotiation
may be very different. Indeed if it were not for the want of fuel in Boston, I should
be quite in despair." Goulburn to Earl Bathurst, October 21, 1814. Wellington,
Supplementary Despatches, IX. 366. "The American plenipotentiaries have agreed
to our Article relative to the Indians. The negotiation is therefore proceeding,
and with more prospect of success than has hitherto existed. We shall probably
be able to form some decisive judgment on the subject in the course of the next ten
days. The capture and destruction of Washington has not united the Americans:
quite the contrary. We have gained more credit with them by saving private
property than we have lost by the destruction of public works and buildings.
Madison clings to office, and I am strongly inclined to think that the best thing for
us is that he should remain there. His government must be a weak one, and feeling
that it has not the confidence of a great part of the nation, will perhaps be ready to
make peace for the purpose of getting out of its difficulties." Liverpool to Castle-
reagh, October 21, 1814. lb., 367.
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
thought it proper to ask for their projet of a treaty, offering
immediately afterwards to deliver them ours in return. By
their last note, dated on the 21st and delivered to us on the
22nd instant, they not only evade that request, but after
aving repeatedly disclaimed any views to the acquisition
•rritory to Great Britain, they now propose to treat upon
the basis of uti possidetis.1 And this proposition is made
immediately after receiving the accounts of the capture of
Washington, and of their having taken possession of all
that part of the state of Massachusetts beyond Penobscot
River. As we have already declared that we would subscribe
no article importing a cession of territory, they must have
been aware that we should reject this basis, and can have
brought it forward for no other purpose than that of wasting
time. In our answer to this note, which was sent yesterday,
we have endeavored to bring them to a point, not only by
explicitly rejecting the basis of uti possidetis, but by remind-
ing them of its inconsistency with their own professions
hitherto, and by stating to them that the utility of continuing
the negotiation must depend upon their adherence to their
principles avowed by those professions. We also renewed
the request for an exchange of projets, and as they intimated
the idea that there might be an advantage in receiving in-
ad of giving the first draft of a treaty, we have offered to
hange the respective drafts at the same time.2
ized by Bathurst, October 20, 1814. Letters and Despatches of Lord
.:>-, X. 172.
rican note of the 24th Liverpool wrote to the Duke of Wellington:
"The last note of the American Plenipotentiaries puts an end, I think, to any hopes
t have entertained of our being able to bring the war with America at this
time to a conclusion.
■i the uti possidetis to be the basis of the treaty as to territory, sub-
ret, h ich modifications as might be found on discussion reciprocally
ads.. :s. They arc disposed to advance the extravagant doctrine of some
utionary governments of France, viz., that they never will cede any
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 173
It is now the general opinion that the Congress at Vienna
will terminate in a settlement of the general affairs in Europe,
if not to the satisfaction of all the great powers, at least with-
out opposition from any of them. Such is the opinion that
I have myself uniformly entertained. All the principal
governments, and all the great nations, except France, are
most anxiously desirous of peace; and as there is little else
to arrange between them besides a distribution of spoils,
each one, however eager to grasp at the most it can get, will
finally content itself with what it can obtain. In France
itself the warlike spirit appears to be gradually subsiding,
and will in all probability yield itself to the continual and
increasing influence and authority of the government. There
is, therefore, little prospect that anything occurring in
Europe will inspire the British ministry with a pacific dis-
position towards America. They are, in fact, continuing to
embark troops and to send reinforcements of all kinds for
another campaign. It is not for me to judge what may be
the effect of the events now so rapidly succeeding one another
in our own hemisphere; but our country cannot be too pro-
foundly impressed with the sentiment that it is, under God,
upon her own native energies alone that she must rely for
peace, Union, and Independence. I am etc.
part of their dominions, even though they shall have been conquered by their
enemies. This principle they bring forward during a war in which one of their chief
efforts has been to conquer and annex Canada to the United States.
"The doctrine of the American government is a very convenient one: that they
will always be ready to keep what they acquire, but never to give up what they
lose. I cannot, however, believe that such a doctrine would receive any counte-
nance (especially after all that has passed) in Europe.
"We still think it desirable to gain a little more time before the negotiation is
brought to a close; and we shall therefore call upon them to deliver in a full project
of all the conditions on which they are ready to make peace, before we enter into
discussion on any of the points contained in our last note." Wellington, Supple-
mentary Despatches, IX. 385.
i;4 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, October 28, 1814.
We have been very much occupied since I wrote you last
in dispatching Mr. Connell, who goes off this morning to
Ostcnd, there to embark in the Chauncey for New York.
During the same time we have been undergoing another sort
of fatigue, which is more tedious and wearisome to me, that
of banqueting. On Wednesday x we dined with the British
plenipotentiaries. No other company than ourselves, but a
Mr. Van Aken, a gentleman of this place, whom we met there
once before. Our acquaintance here in consequence of the
ball we gave, and of the manner in which we have mingled
in society, has become extensive, and as we have associated
indiscriminately with all the respectable classes, now as the
winter approaches we have the prospect of partaking as
much as the gayest of us can wish, in what are called the
pleasures of society. The inhabitants of the place of all
descriptions show us every civility and attention in their
power, and we have not now to learn how much more we
enjoy of their favor than our adversaries. We have not
like them two sentinels clad in scarlet at our doors. Our
guard of honor is the good will of the people. We do not
quarter upon them the scarlet coats by the thousands; we
levy no contributions of monthly millions upon them to feed
the lobsters; and we do not crush their manufactures by
crowding upon their markets the competition of ours. The
.aired of the English is so universal, and so bitter, that we
may attribute no small part of the kindness shown to us to
the mere fact of our being the representatives of our enemies.
The English ministers live as secluded as if they were monks
1 ( Urtobcr 26. Sec Adams, Memoirs, October 26, 1814.
i8i41 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 175
of the old convent of Chartreux where they reside. Lord
Gambier, who appears to me to be an excellent and well
meaning man, asked me the day before yesterday, whether
we had made any acquaintances here. I said we had. He
replied that theirs was confined to the Intendant's family.
This however is altogether owing to themselves. Little as
the people here love their nation, they would be ready enough
to associate with them, and to show them civility, if they
sought it. But Lord Gambier himself is an elderly man not
much suited to shine or to delight in mixed societies. Mr.
Goulburn is a very young one, but he has his wife with him,
and has so much of my humor, as to think his own family
the best company. Both he and Dr. Adams have the English
prejudice of disliking everything that is not English, and
of taking no pains to conceal their taste. . . . None of
them would find much to please them in the companies of
this place, nor is there much in any or all of them to give
more pleasure than they would receive. . . .
We have no further news since Tuesday from America,
excepting the confirmation of the destruction of the British
fleet on Lake Champlain, and the consequent retreat of
Sir George Prevost. ... Sir George Prevost, it seems,
was advancing to take possession of the new line of boundary
which they intend to demand at the peace, and since his
defeat the Courier says one more effort may be necessary,
but that will be the last. All the accounts from England
since this affair has been known concur in saying that there
will be no peace; but if they do not secure their object by
the effort of this campaign they will not be so likely to obtain
it by the next. May he in whose hands is the spirit as well
as the destiny of nations support us in the struggle we have
to go through! . . -1
1 "I see little prospect of our negotiations at Ghent ending in peace, and I am
>-'
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, November 4, 18 14.
Since that time,1 facts, more or less material to
the issue of the negotiation, have occasionally transpired,
but in the English newspapers they are so blended with other
ments given with equal confidence and totally destitute
of foundation, that the public in England have no real knowl-
edge of the true state of things. You will accordingly find
that the accounts both by the newspapers and by the private
letters from England will be altogether different from the
information you have received and will continue to receive
from me. Our occupations and our amusements still furnish
a daily paragraph to every gazette, but there is a mixture
of truth and of fiction in their narrative, even of particulars
which are in their nature of public notoriety. They have
not only noted down our excursions of pleasure, and our
shipping of baggage on board the Neptune, but they have
sent me to Bruxelles, while I have not slept out of Ghent
since my first arrival in it. They have dispatched Mr. Bay-
apprehensive that they may be brought to a conclusion under circumstances which
will render it necessary to lay the papers before Parliament, and to call for a vote
upon them previous to the Christmas recess. Of this, however, I shall probably
c enabled to speak more positively some days hence. The continuance of the
American war will entail upon us a prodigious expense, much more than we had
idea of. . . . If we had been at peace with all the world, and the arrange-
to be made at Vienna were likely to contain anything very gratifying to the
.•lings of this country, we might have met the question with some degree of con-
nce; but as matters now stand, everything that is really valuable will be con-
JcrcJ as having been gained before, and we shall be asked whether we can really-
such a charge in addition to all the burthens which the American war will
ring upon us." Liverpool to Castlereagh, November 2, 1814. Wellington, Supple-
mentary Despatches, IX. 401. See Adams, Memoirs, May 12, 1815, for the state-
ment <.f the Duke de Vicence on Castlereagh's desire for peace.
n Creighton and Milligan visited England, and the consequent charges of
ilating in cotton and tobacco.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 177
ard to Paris to take the court of France by storm, when he
was only gone to Bergen op Zoom, to look at the walls which
General Graham intended to storm, and failed. They have
sent us, or dreamt of our being sent, like fire-ships loaded
with combustibles, to Vienna, to blow up the Congress there,
and spread a conflagration of universal war again all over
Europe. One day they have prostrated us at the feet of the
British plenipotentiaries, repenting in the dust, and crying
for mercy; and the next they have seated us on a car of
triumph, showering gold around us, and bribing Talleyrand
with beaucoup d'argent to arm the universe against the
maritime rights of old England. All this time we have been
proceeding exactly as I have told you: once a fortnight, or
thereabouts, receiving from the British Privy Council a note
signed by their plenipotentiaries, full of arrogant language
and inadmissible demands, which in three or four days we
have answered, sometimes with elaborate argument, always
with extreme moderation, occasionally with firmness and
spirit, and never with unsuitable concession; much less with
the port of suitors or the attitude of asking for indulgence.
We have attempted neither to storm the court of France,
nor to blow up the Congress at Vienna. We have left the
powers of the European continent to their own reflections
concerning the maritime rights of the British empire, and
have been as far from asking of them as they have been
from offering us any of their assistance. We see plainly
enough that we shall have no peace but by the failure of the
British forces in America to accomplish the objects for which
they were sent, and by the failure of the British govern-
ment to give the law to all Europe at Vienna. Should they
succeed in America, we shall have no peace, because our
country will never submit to the terms they would dictate.
Should they succeed in Vienna, we shall have no peace, be-
y THE WRITINGS OF [1814
cause they will prefer war with us, to peace upon any terms.
In the meantime they are merely multiplying discussions
to keep the negotiation alive, until they shall find it their
interest to break off or to conclude. In answer to their last
note we shall send them in two or three days, the draft of a
treaty. There is little chance of our finishing in any manner
within a month, and not much probability before the close
of the year. . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, November 8, 18 14.
... We have not yet sent our reply to the note which
we received on the 31st ulto. from the British plenipoten-
tiaries.1 We had never before taken so much time to reply;
the reason of which delay is that we have been preparing the
draft of a treaty to send with the note. This has brought us
upon the whole field of this negotiation, and has made it
necessary to deliberate and agree among ourselves upon
many thorny points of discussion. It has not in this state
of things been perfectly easy to bring our own minds to the
point of cordial unanimity; but our deliberations have been
cool, moderate, mutually conciliatory, and I think will result
in full harmony. We shall not be ready with the project
before Thursday — perhaps not even so soon. While it shall
continue to be the policy of the British government to tem-
porize, we cannot force them to decision. Since their last
disgraces in America, the spirit of the English nation is evi-
dently more fiercely bent upon the prosecution of the war
than it was before. The negotiators from Bordeaux 2 upon
-■■an State Papers, Forcipn Relations, III. 726.
J The bayonets of the seasoned troops sent to America from the continent of
pe.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 179
whose success so much reliance was placed having failed,
the only conclusion that Mr. Bull's pride will allow him to
draw from his disappointment is that there were not enough
of them. So he insists upon making another trial and sending
more. General Pakenham l goes out with a staff to succeed
Ross. Prevost and most of the old commanding officers are
recalled. A man of high rank is to be sent as commander-
in-chief of all the forces. Wellington will, I think, not go
yet; but unless he is wiser than I believe him, he will go be-
fore the war ends, and then — God speed the monument of
the women of Great Britain and Ireland! As Wellington
began where Cornwallis ended, his American expedition, if
he undertakes it, I hope will end him where Cornwallis began
— at Yorktown. . . .2
1 Edward Michael Pakenham (1778-1815). See C. F. Adams, Studies, Military
and Diplomatic, 1775-1865, 176.
2 In expressing a wish that the Duke of Wellington should take command of the
British forces in America, Liverpool wrote to Castlereagh, November 4, 1814:
" I know he is very anxious for the restoration of peace with America if it can be
made upon terms at all honourable. It is a material consideration, likewise, that
if we shall be disposed for the sake of peace to give up something of our just pre-
tensions, we can do this more creditably through him than through any other
person." Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 405. And to the Duke of
Wellington, on the same date: "We cannot, however, conceal from you that great
public advantage would arise from your accepting this [American] command. The
more we contemplate the character of the American war, the more satisfied we are
of the many inconveniences which may grow out of the continuance of it. We
desire to bring it to an honourable conclusion; and this object would, in our judg-
ment, be more likely to be attained by vesting you with double powers than by
any other arrangement which could be suggested." lb., 406. Wellington believed
that under the existing circumstances the Ministry "cannot at this moment allow
me to quit Europe." lb., 422, 425. On the question hindering the conclusion of a
peace he wrote: "In regard to your present negotiations, I confess that I think
you have no right from the state of the war to demand any concession from Amer-
ica. Considering everything, it is my opinion that the war has been a most suc-
cessful one, and highly honourable to the British arms; but from particular cir-
cumstances, such as the want of the naval superiority on the Lakes, you have not
been able to carry it into the enemy's territory, notwithstanding your military
l8o THE WRITINGS OF [1814
TO WILLIAM HARRIS CRAWFORD
Ghent, 6th November, 18 14.
Dear Sir:
Mr. Gallatin and myself have received your favor of
25th ultimo, and I have also to acknowledge that of the
26th addressed separately to me. We shall reply jointly to
the former, but that gentleman thinks there is no occasion
for immediate urgency on the subject, and I rely upon his
judgment.
Our negotiation is spinning out, and unless our govern-
ment brings it to a close, will be a mere chancery suit. Last
Monday we received a note eluding for the second time our
request for an exchange of projets. They talk of etiquette,
and of the advantage of receiving the first projet instead of
giving it. We shall therefore send them the first projet. But
success, and now undoubted military superiority, and have not even cleared your
territory of the enemy on the point of attack. You cannot then, on any prin-
ciple of equality in negotiation, claim a cession of territory excepting in exchange
for other advantages which you have in your power. . . . Then, if all this
reasoning be true, why stipulate for the uti possidetis? You can get no territory;
indeed the state of your military operations, however creditable, does not entitle
you to demand any; and you only afford the Americans a popular and creditable
nd which, I believe, their government are looking for, not to break off the.
'tiations, but to avoid to make peace. If you had territory, as I hope you soon
will have New Orleans, I should prefer to insist upon the cession of that province
as a separate article than upon the uti possidetis as a principle of negotiation."
/' . 4:'.. On the 18th Liverpool could inform Castlereagh: "I think we have de-
nincd, if all other points can be satisfactorily settled, not to continue the war
■ the purpose of obtaining or securing any acquisition of territory. We have been
this determination by the consideration of the unsatisfactory state of the
it Vienna, and by that of the alarming situation of the interior of
Frame. \\V have also been obliged to pay serious attention to the state of our
hnatues, and to the difficulties we shall have in continuing the property tax. . . .
It has appeared to us desirable to bring the American war if possible to a conclu-
lion." ft.,438.
,814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 181
what are we to expect from plenipotentiaries who are ob-
liged to send to the Privy Council for objections of etiquette
and question who shall give or receive the first draft?
I thought they were waiting for the issue of the campaign
in America. But success and defeat there produce the same
result upon them. The instant they knew of their achieve-
ments at Washington and Penobscot they shifted their
ground, rose in their demands, and proposed the basis of
uti possidetis. When they heard of their defeats at Baltimore
and on Lake Champlain, it became indispensable to wipe
off the disgrace upon their arms and to prosecute the war
upon a larger scale. It is from Vienna and not from America
that the balance of peace or of war will preponderate.
I heartily share in all your exultation at our late successes
and in all your wishes for the future. If I am lagging in the
rear of some of your hopes, it is from a sluggishness in the
anticipation of good, for which I have no reason to thank the
character of my imagination. Certainly, what you foresee is
more probable than what has actually happened. May all
your hopes be realized!
We have received a passport for the Transit. The Chaun-
cey sailed on the first instant. I am etc.
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, November II, 1814.
... If we were to credit the present reports from
England, our mission here would have the prospect of
termination within a very few days. The Morning Chronicle
of the 2d instant announces that the total rupture of the
negotiation at Ghent will be made public within a fortnight
from that time. Sir Edward Pakenham, General Gibbs,
l82 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
and many other officers have embarked and sailed for Amer-
ica in the Statira frigate from Portsmouth. All the letters
from England concur in stating that the popular sentiment
continuing the war is a perfect frenzy. The Times
blubbers that all the laurels of Portugal, Spain, and France,
have withered at Plattsburg, and threatens damnation to
ministry if they dare to make peace with Madison and
his faction. We are even told that Master Bull calls for a
more vigorous administration to put down the Yankees, and
that that model of public and private virtue, Wellesley, is
to replace such sneaking prodigals of the nation's blood and
treasures as Castlereagh and Liverpool. . . .
Last evening we sent to the British commissioners the
answer to their last note, and with it an entire draft of a
treaty.1 As notwithstanding all the news from England, I
1 Printed in American State Papers, Foreign Relations, III. 733. Of this draft
. treaty Goulburn wrote: "The greater part of their project is by far too ex-
travagant to leave any doubt upon our minds as to the mode in which it could be
ited; but there is some doubt whether it would be useful to comply with the
request of the American Commissioners, and state specifically the reasons which
induce us to object more or less to all the articles proposed by them. Such a state-
ment, though not difficult, would be voluminous." Goulburn to Earl Bathurst,
. ember 10, 18 14. Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 427.
iirst wrote to Goulburn of the change of feeling and desire for a treaty, who
replied on the 25th: "I need not trouble you with the expression of my sincere
regret at the alternative which the government feels itself compelled by the present
■■ of affairs in Europe to adopt with respect to America. You know that I was
icvet much inclined to give way to the Americans; and I am still less inclined to
fter the statement of our demands with which the negotiation opened, and
h has in every point of view proved most unfortunate. Believing, however, in
e necessity of the measures, you may rely upon our doing our utmost to bring
the negotiation to a speedy issue; but I confess I shall be much surprised if the
.ns do not, by cavilling and long debate upon every alteration proposed by
us. e to keep us in suspense for a longer time than under present circum-
rable, . . . I had till I came here no idea of the fixed determina-
tion which prevails in the breast of every American to extirpate the Indians and
their territory; but I am now sure that there is nothing which the people
l8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 183
do not think their government yet prepared to break off the
negotiation, I expect it will be ten days before they send us
their reply. We are not aware of anything either in our
note or in the treaty we propose, that they may seize upon
as the pretext for breaking; but there is enough in both for
that object, if they think the time arrived for proclaiming
the rupture. We have in the note made a proposal more com-
prehensive, more liberal, more adapted to ensure peace (in
my opinion) than anything that has yet passed in the cor-
respondence on either side. This proposal has been made
at my suggestion, and there has been great difficulty in
coming to unanimity upon it.1 My belief is that it is the
only principle upon which there is any possibility of peace,
and in my view it is calculated to be of great advantage to us,
if it should fail, because in the event of a rupture it will be
our strongest justification in the eyes of the world. But so
different are the views of others, that many ill consequences
are expected from it, and if they should ensue, the whole
responsibility of the measure will be brought to bear directly
upon me. Of this I was fully assured when I presented the
proposal, and I am prepared to take all the blame that
may ultimately attach to it upon myself. It was, however,
readily adopted, and strenuously supported by both my
colleagues of the former mission.
As Parliament was to meet on the 8th we may now expect
the Regent's speech in a day or two. Lord Castlereagh has
not yet returned from Vienna, and we have not yet heard of
the opening of the Congress. It was, as you know, post-
of America would so reluctantly abandon as what they are pleased to call their
natural right to do so." Goulburn to Earl Bathurst, November 25, 1814. Wellington,
Supplementary Despatches, IX., 452, 454.
*A proposal to conclude the peace on the footing of the state before the war,
applied to all the subjects of dispute between the two countries, leaving all the rest
for future and pacific discussion. See Adams, Memoirs, November 10, 18 14.
1^4
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
poned to the first of this month. The speech will probably
. e some indication of the aspect of things both at Vienna
and at Ghent. If the determination to continue the war in
America is settled, it will be disclosed in the speech, and we
have rumors that not only the Regent but the Queen have
manifested their concurrence with the popular passion for
war. It is therefore to be expected that the answer to our
draft of a treaty, whether in the shape of a counter-project
as we have requested, or by the refusal to send us one, will
bring us to some point on which the rupture will turn. They
have no hopes of reducing the Yankees to unconditional
.submission by the events of this campaign. But the news
still to come will give them encouragement, and when fully
prepared with the ways and means for the next year, they
will have no motive to keep us longer lingering here. . . .
TO GEORGE JOY
Ghent, 14 November, 18 14.
Sir:
After receiving your favor of 30 September I have been
waiting in expectation of the pleasure of seeing you here
until j esterday, when yours of the 4th instant was put into
my hands. I have a double motive for regretting the delay
of your journey upon learning that it has been occasioned
bj <)us indisposition.
The sentiments expressed by your two correspondents
from whose letters you are kind enough to send me extracts
arc just, in part. Disgusting, however, as the aspect which
the war has (not so very lately) assumed must be to every
iberal and candid mind, I believe we must consider it as
the aspect which all wars between those two parties always
i8i41 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 185
will assume. It is "fraternal rage" — it is civil war. The
Capitol, a legislative and judicial palace, a public library
and a chapel were blown up, we are told, by way of retalia-
tion. What was Lewiston bombarded for? What was
Georgetown, Frederickstown, Frenchtown and Havre de
Grace destroyed for? What were the wounded prisoners
at the river Raisin butchered in cold blood for? Was it for
retaliation? Those things were not indeed translated into
all the languages of Europe, and sent by special messengers
to every court, and therefore the indignation of mankind
has not marked so strongly their feelings as it did to greet
the messengers who come to proclaim the destruction of the
Capitol — I forbear.
If the full length picture presents the same features as
your miniature, the ruin of the Capitol will be a public
blessing. But it was once said that they who believed not
Moses and the prophets would neither believe one from the
dead. My faith is unshaken in the result. Whether the
test of the process is to be more or less severe depends not
upon us, but upon an overruling power, in whose hands our
enemies are but instruments. You see I am something of
an optimist, and as such permit me to express the earnest
hope that this may find you well.
Remaining in the meantime your very humble servant.
l86 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
TO LEVETT HARRIS
Ghent, 15 November, 18 14.
Dear Sir:
I have just now the pleasure of receiving your favor of
14 26 October, and am happy to learn from yourself the con-
firmation of your recovery, of which and of your illness I had
a few days since been informed by a letter from my wife.
.War the close of the month of August it was our expecta-
tion that the negotiation here would have terminated in a
very few days. It soon after became apparent that the in-
tention of the British government was to keep it open, and
to shape its demands according to the course of events in
Europe and in America. This policy still continues to per-
vade the British Cabinet. Nothing decisive is yet known
to them to have occurred either at Vienna, or in the other
hemisphere, and accordingly they temporize still. Unless
something should happen to fix their wavering pretensions
1 purposes it will belong to the American government alone
i" bring our business to a point. This on their part would
certainly be an honorable and spirited course of conduct,
and I should have no doubt of its being pursued, if the desire
- if peace were not paramount to every other consideration.
The occurrences of the war in America have been of a
diversified nature. Success and defeat have alternately
attended the arms of both belligerents, and hitherto have
left them nearly where they were at the commencement of
the campaign. It has been on our part merely defensive,
the single exception of the taking of Fort Erie with
ich it began. The battles of Chippewa and of Bridge-
water, the defence of Fort Erie on the 15th of August, and
the naval action upon Lake Champlain on the nth of Sep-
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 187
tember have redounded to our glory, as much as to our ad-
vantage; while the loss of Washington, the capitulations of
Alexandria, and of Washington County, Massachusetts, and
of Nantucket, have been more disgraceful to us than in-
jurious.
The defence of Baltimore has given us little more to be
proud of, than the demonstration against it has afforded to
our enemy. Prevost's retreat from Plattsburg has been more
disgraceful to them, than honorable to us, and Wellington's
veterans, the fire-eater Brisbane * and the firebrand Cock-
burn, have kept the rawest of our militia in countenance by
their expertness in the art of running away.
The general issue of the campaign is yet to come, and
there is too much reason to apprehend that it will be un-
favorable to our side. Left by a concurrence of circumstances
unexampled in the annals of the world to struggle alone and
friendless against the whole colossal power of Great Britain,
fighting in reality against her for the cause of all Europe,
with all Europe coldly looking on, basely bound not to raise
in our favor a helping hand, secretly wishing us success, and
not daring so much as to cheer us in the strife — what could
be expected from the first furies of this unequal conflict but
disaster and discomfiture to us.2 Divided among ourselves,
more in passions than interest, with half the nation sold by
their prejudice and their ignorance to our enemy, with a
feeble and penurious government, with five frigates for a
navy and scarcely five efficient regiments for an army, how
can it be expected that we should resist the mass of force
1 Sir Thomas Makdougall-Brisbane (1773-1860).
2 "There is a report here that the maritime question was brought forward at the
Congress at Vienna by the French plenipotentiaries, but the opposition of the
British agents was so pointed and imperious that it was not persisted in nor sup-
ported by the other powers." Levett Harris to John Quincy Adams, 31 October
12 November, 18 14. Ms.
l88 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
which that gigantic power has collected to crush us at a
w ? This too is the moment which she has chosen to break
through all the laws of war, acknowledged and respected by
civilized nations. Under the false pretence of retaliation
G .chrane has formerly declared the determination to destroy
I lay waste all the towns on the sea coast which may be
mailable. The ordinary horrors of war are mildness and
rcy in comparison with what British vengeance and malice
have denounced upon us. We must go through it all. I
trust in God we shall rise in triumph over it all; but the first
•ck is the most terrible part of the process, and it is that
which we are now enduring. . . •
I am etc.
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, 15 November, 18 14.
. . . There was a concert and redoute (meaning thereby
a ball) in the evening, which the younger part of our com-
pany attended. It is by subscription once a week, on Mon-
days; alternately a simple concert, and this mixed enter-
tainment of last evening, half concert, and half ball. It
began last week with a concert, which I attended and found
rather tedious, though it was over about eight o'clock. It
ted almost entirely of the scarlet coated gentry from
1 [anover and England, who are not more favorites of ours
than they are of the inhabitants of the country. They are
carcely ever admitted into the good company of the place
private society, and so they have taken almost exclusive
ion of the public places where the only condition of
admittance is the payment of money.
The theatrical season has also commenced from the first
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 189
of this month. All the boxes of the first and second row
are taken by the season; but as a particular consideration
in our favor we were admitted to take a box by the month.
I say we, though I am not personally included in the arrange-
ment. The regular performances are alternately three and
four times a week, and once or twice with the abonnement
suspendu. The company is, for French players, without
exception the worst I ever saw. There is but one tolerable
actor, and not one actress in the whole troop. Occasionally
they have had one good singer, male, but he had a figure
like Sancho Panza, and one female, but she was sixty years
old and had lost her teeth. Sometimes they bring out rope
dancers and sometimes dancers without ropes, who are
rambling about the country, and half fill the houses two or
three nights; but the standards of the stage are the veriest
histrionic rabble that my eyes ever beheld. Yet they have
a very good orchestra of instrumental performers, very de-
cent scenery, and a sufficient variety of it; and a wardrobe
of elegant and even magnificent dresses. The only days when
they give anything which I think fit to be seen or heard are
those when the abonnement is suspended. Some of us are
very constant attendants. Mr. Gallatin and James never
miss. They have become intimately acquainted with the
whole troop. All our family have become in a manner do-
mesticated behind the scenes, with a single exception. Who
that is you may conjecture. I go to the theatre about once
a week, and have found no temptation to go oftener. My
evenings, although they are drawing to the season of their
greatest length, have as yet seldom hung heavy upon my
hands.
We have usually, after sending a note to the British pleni-
potentiaries, from a week to ten days of leisure. Such has
been our state since last Thursday, when we transmitted to
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
them our project of a treaty. We shall probably not have
the reply sooner than next Monday. . . .
The 1 '-: lish newspapers to the 10th bring nothing further
from America. One great reason that I have for believing
that the next news will be bad— very bad— is that most of
us are sanguine in the hope that it will be very good. We
have had many and signal unexpected favors of Providence;
but I do not recollect a single instance since the commence-
:nt of the war, when we have indulged hopes founded on
flattering prospects, that they have not issued in bitter dis-
appointment.
The Regent's speech talks as usual about the unprovoked
aggression of America, and her siding with the oppressor of
irope, but says he is negotiating with her for peace; that
his disposition is pacific, and that the success will depend on
his meeting a similar disposition in the American govern-
ment.1 These, as Lord Grenville in the debate observes, are
rds of course, and he calls upon the ministers to say what
the war is continued for? Lord Liverpool brings it out in
terms which, equivocal as they are, explain sufficiently to
us the policy which I have so often told you they were pur-
suing. He said, according to the report of the Courier,
"that particular circumstances might prescribe conditions
which in a different situation of affairs it would be impolitic
and improper to propose." That is to say, that the terms
they intend to prescribe will depend upon the circumstances
of the campaign in America, and of their success at the Con-
gress! of Vienna. The Regent has therefore mistaken his
<>\vn disposition. It is not to make peace, but to vary his
iposals according to circumstances. This is what his
government lias done with us. They have changed their
•unds in almost every note they have sent us, and have
1 See Annual Register, 1814, 353.
,8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 191
been steady to nothing but the principle of avoiding to
pledge themselves to anything — to pledge themselves effect-
ually, I mean, — for they have repeatedly slunk in one note
from a demand which they had declared to be indispensable
in another, and on the first encouragement of success they
brought forward demands totally inadmissible, which they
had before solemnly disclaimed.
Lord Grenville and Mr. Whitbread censured the destruc-
tion of the Capitol and President's house at Washington.
They were told that it was done by way of retaliation. But
Admiral Cochrane has made a formal declaration that he
shall destroy and lay waste such towns as he may find as-
sailable on the sea coast, having been required by Sir George
Prevost to do so, to retaliate for similar destruction com-
mitted by the Americans in Canada. Prevost himself at the
same time in his expedition to Plattsburg issued a proclama-
tion forbidding every such excess, and declaring that they
were not making war upon the American people, but only
against their government. Whitbread called upon the
ministers to account for the inconsistency between Prevost's
proclamation and his alleged requisition to Cochrane; but
they gave him no answer. The real cause was that Prevost
was entering that part of the country to conquer it, and the
government intended to keep it. So they tried there the
system of coaxing the people. On the sea coast, which they
do not expect to keep, they meant merely to plunder and
destroy. The retaliation was nothing but a pretext. . . .
ig2 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
TO WILLIAM HARRIS CRAWFORD
Ghent, 17 November, 1814.
Dear Sir:
I received yesterday your favor of the 10th instant, which
was brought by Mr. Storrow. My expectations with re-
gard to the issue of the campaign in America are colored
perhaps more by general reasoning than by reference to the
particular state of facts. I cannot suppose it possible that
Izard's object was an attack upon Kingston. I take it for
granted it was to relieve and reinforce our army at Fort Erie,
which by our most recent accounts was in a situation more
critical than that of Drummond, and still beseiged by him.
long the last rumors from Halifax is that of a successful
sortie from Fort Erie, and if that report was well founded
we might rely more upon the issue of Izard's expedition.
My distrust of it arises from the necessity of exact corre-
spondence in the execution of combined operations, and a
want of confidence in our military manoeuvres upon the
land. We have not yet learnt to play the game.
The debates in Parliament upon the Regent's speech have
disclosed the system pursued by his government in the nego-
tiation at this place. Lord Liverpool avows without scruple
that their demands and propositions are to be regulated by
circumstances, and of course while that policy prevails
n- >thing can be concluded. Even when all the preparations
are made, and all the funds provided for another campaign,
it is not clear that they will find it expedient to break off
tl. nation, and it is certain that we shall not break it
off without orders from our government. We sent on the
10th instant the projet of a treaty, assuming the basis of
status ante- helium with regard to the territory, and have
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 193
offered in the note sent with it to extend the same principle
to all other objects in dispute between the two countries.
We have presented articles on the subjects of impressment,
blockades, indemnities, exclusion of savage cooperation in
future wars, and amnesty. But we have declared ourselves
willing to sign a peace placing the two nations precisely as
they were at the commencement of the war, and leaving all
controversial matter for future and pacific negotiation. I
was earnestly desirous that this offer should be made, not
from a hope that it would be accepted, for I entertained none;
but with the hope that it would take from them the advan-
tage of cavilling at any of our proposed articles, as manifest-
ing no disposition for peace, and compel them to avow for
what object they intend to continue the war. We have
offered no equivalent for the fisheries. We have considered
the rights and liberties connected with them as having
formed essential parts of the acknowledgement of our inde-
pendence. They need no additional stipulation to secure us
in the enjoyment of them, and that our government upon
these principles had instructed us not to bring them into
discussion. This was originally my view of the subject, and
the principle on which I thought the rights to the fisheries
must be defended, from the moment when we were informed
in the first conference they would be contested. The offer
of an equivalent was afterwards suggested from a doubt
whether the ground I had proposed to take was tenable,
and with the intention of relieving it from all contention.
I was prepared for either alternative, but I held the one or
the other to be indispensable. We finally assumed the prin-
ciple on which I had originally rested the cause. It is urged,
that the principle, if correct, includes the equivalent which
it had been contemplated to offer, and I admit that it may.
The general basis of the state before the war includes in
m THE WRITINGS OF [1814
su
bstance both, to my mind beyond all doubt. And although
I have no hope that this offer will be now accepted, yet if it
uld, I am not only ready to adhere to it and abide by it
in all its consequences, but to sign the treaty with a degree
of pleasure which has not yet fallen to my lot in this life.
1 am very certain that after seven years of war we shall not
obtain more, and what heart would continue the war another
day, finally to obtain less?
You will have observed that the atrocious manner in
which the British are carrying on the war in our country has
been a subject of animadversion in Parliament. The minis-
ters placed it on the footing of retaliation. Lord Grenville
and Mr. Whitbread censure in the style which Burke de-
scribed as "above all things afraid of being too much in the
right". They are evidently not in possession of the facts
which shed the foulest infamy upon the British name in these
transactions. We have seen several interesting specula-
tions in the Paris papers on the same subject. Would it not
be possible through the same channel to show the falsehood
of the pretext of retaliation, or to make the principle recoil
upon themselves? You have no doubt the report of the
committee made 31 July, 1813, on the spirit and manner in
which the war had been waged against us even then. It has
occurred to me that a short abstract from that might be pre-
ttted to the public in Europe, with a reference to dates,
which would point the argument of retaliation, such as it is,
directly against the enemy. In general, the British have
had ever since the commencement of the war such entire
session of all the printing presses in Europe, that its
public opinion has been almost exclusively under their guid-
ance. From the access which truth and humanity have ob-
tained in several of the public journals in France in relation
t< \ our affairs, it may be inferred that no control unfavorable
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
195
to them will be exercised, however unwelcome the real ex-
position of facts may be across the channel.
It appears that the principles asserted by the French
plenipotentiaries at Vienna have made a profound impres-
sion, that they have already disconcerted some of the proj-
ects of Lord Castlereagh, and that without offering any
pretext for hostility from any quarter, they have laid the
foundation for the restoration to France of that influence in
the affairs of Europe without which this continent would be
little more than a British colony. The issue of the Congress
at Vienna will undoubtedly be pacific; but if France has
taken the attitude ascribed to her by the rumored contents
of Talleyrand's memorial, her rival will not long enjoy the
dream of dictating her laws to the civilized world. France
had lost her place in the family of nations. It was at Vienna
that it became her to resume it. We have reason to hope
that she did resume it exactly where she ought, and as the
place she took was marked at once with dignity and modera-
tion, it is to be presumed it will be maintained with firmness.
I am etc.
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, 18 November, 18 14.
... It is the eighth day since we sent our last note to
the British plenipotentiaries. Their reply to our communica-
tions has not hitherto been delayed beyond ten days, and if
no unusual time should be taken for the consideration of
our project for a treaty, we may expect their note next
Monday. If their government seriously intended to make
peace at present, by the proposal which we have made them,
and to which I referred in my last letter, it might be con-
I)'-
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
eluded in twenty-four hours; but as it will certainly not be
accepted, there can as certainly be no peace at this time.
Had there been any doubt on this point left upon my mind
it would have been removed by the avowal of Lord Liverpool
in the debate on the Regent's speech, that their demands
and proposals were to rise and fall according to circum-
stances.
The Congress of Vienna has not exactly corresponded in
its arrangements with their intentions, but they have suc-
Jed at it in some of their most important purposes. They
will conclude these without any disturbance of a general
peace, but probably France will be left dissatisfied with the
arrangements, and formally protesting against them. Such
is at least said to be the present state of affairs. The great
effort of Lord Castlereagh has been to exclude France totally
from all influence in the general distribution of spoils of
Europe, and even from all interference in the affairs of
Germany. The great effort of Talleyrand has been to exer-
cise influence without provoking hostility, to counteract the
views of the British government without directly confront-
ing them, and finally to dissolve the league against France
under which the Congress first assembled. If the public
reports from Vienna may be credited, the address of Talley-
rand has hitherto gained ground upon that of his antagonist.
There has been undoubtedly a clashing of purposes between
them which at one time amounted to a personal misunder-
standing. The English story from Vienna is that Talleyrand
shrunk from his pretensions, and smoothed away the
difficulties he had raised. The reports here are that the
Emperor Alexander has declared himself in favor of the
principles asserted by Talleyrand in his famous memorial;
that the memorial has produced a profound impression; that
Tall- yrand distinguishes himself by his activity and talents;
,814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 197
that he has availed himself of the opposition of interests, and
has even obtained a reconsideration of certain decisions
which had already been agreed to by the other great powers.
The first object of France necessarily must have been to
untie the knot of all Europe combined against her. This
she could not more effectually do than by declaring that she
demanded nothing for herself. The next declaration that
it was not her intention to oppose by force any of the arrange-
ments which should be made, took from the other powers
all pretext for measures of hostility against her; and under
the shelter of these two preliminaries, it was impossible that
her voice should be heard without effect in the subsequent
deliberations of those whose principal object was to share
the general plunder among themselves.
Notwithstanding this it is apparent that the affairs of
Europe will be settled at Vienna, so much according to
English views, and so far against the interests of France, that
she will never cordially acquiesce in the settlement. She may
perhaps have prevented the projected aggrandizement of
the kingdom of Hanover; but the fate of Saxony, of Belgium,
and perhaps of Italy, has been fixed without regard to her
remonstrances. Britain is engaged in a war which must em-
ploy a considerable part of her forces, and increase the em-
barrassment of her finances. France will be well pleased to
see the continuation of this war, and will be watching the
favorable moment to redeem herself from the humiliation
she is now enduring as well as to recover the relative posi-
tion from which she has just now been degraded. England
must be kept in a continual state of jealousy and alarm,
even in the midst of peace, having the constant danger im-
pending over her of war. It is impossible that the Congress
of Vienna should settle a permanent basis for the balance of
Europe. They will merely distribute the spoils of France,
I98 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
and open the source of future combinations against their
own measures, of which France will be the natural centre and
support. . . •
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 143. [James Monroe]
Ghent, 20 November, 18 14.
Sir:
The Chauncey sailed on the first of this month from Ostend,
and by her we transmitted to you copies of all the official
papers which had passed between the British plenipoten-
tiaries and us. The interval that had elapsed since the de-
parture of the John Adams was so long that I am apprehen-
sive you may have thought it unnecessarily protracted. It
was owing to the reluctance with which the supercargo of
the Chauncey came to the determination of proceeding to
America, and to the dilatory proceedings of the British
Admiralty upon our applications for passports for vessels
to convey our dispatches. On the 7th of September we had
by a note to the British plenipotentiaries requested them to
obtain such a passport for the schooner Herald, lying at
Amsterdam. There were a number of persons citizens of the
United States 1 who were desirous of returning in that vessel
as passengers, and we gave their names with the intimation
of a wish that they might be inserted as passengers on the
passport. We have not to this day received any answer from
the Admiralty upon this application.
When Mr. Boyd arrived here, we immediately addressed
a note to the (British) plenipotentiaries asking a passport
1 Moffaft, Gray, Gookin, Price, Bly, and Williams.
i8i41 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 199
for the Transit to return to the United States with our dis-
patches; at the same time we ir formed them that you had
been obliged to dispatch her withou^, any passport, and sent
them copies of your note to Lord Castfereagh, enclosing the
duplicates of your letters of 25 and 27 June to us, and of
Admiral Cockburn's letter to you, alleging his commander's
orders for refusing a passport for a vessel in July, because
he judged it sufficient to have given one for another vessel
the preceding March; and we intimated to them that their
officers had thus to the utmost extent of their power pre-
cluded our government from transmitting to us any instruc-
tions subsequent to their knowledge of the important changes
in the affairs of Europe which had so essential a bearing
upon the objects of our negotiation. The circumstance was
the more remarkable, because the British plenipotentiaries
had in one of their notes made it a subject of reproach to the
government of the United States, that they had not furnished
us with instructions after being informed of the pacification
of Europe. We had, indeed, told them at the conference of
the 9th of August that we had then received instructions
dated at the close of June. But this had altogether escaped
their recollection; so that while Admiral Cockburn was
writing you that his superior officer had decided that there
was no further occasion for our government to instruct us
until they should receive dispatches from us, the British
government was taking it for granted that we had received
no instructions and was charging it as an indication that
the American government was not sincerely disposed to
peace.
It was nearly five months after we made this communica-
tion asking a passport for the Transit, when we received it.
The passport requires that she should go in ballast, and with
no other passenger than a bearer of dispatches from us. No
: O
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
. r has been given us, either in relation to Admiral Cock-
burn's letter to you refusing a cartel, or to your note to
Lord Castlereagh, inclosing the duplicates. We received
the passport for the Transit only the day before the Chauncey
[led, so that the length of time between the dispatching of
Mr. Dallas and that of Mr. Connell, and of course the long
period which you will probably be without advices from
will have been owing to obstacles independent of our
itrol.
From the nature of the British pretensions and demands
as disclosed in the first note from their plenipotentiaries to
us, and from the tone with which they were brought forward,
b( >th in that note and in the conference of the day on which
it is dated, we had concluded that the rupture of the negotia-
tion would immediately ensue, and expected to have been
discharged from our attendance at this place before the
first of September. The British plenipotentiaries, after re-
ceiving our answer to their first note, appeared to entertain
the same expectation, and if the sincerity of their conversa-
tion can be implicitly trusted, they were not altogether in
the secret of their government. It soon became apparent
fn an the course pursued by them, that the intention of the
British Cabinet was neither to break off the negotiation nor
to conclude the peace. They expected that a powerful im-
pression would be made in America by the armaments,
naval and military, which they had sent and were continuing
to send. At the same time the result of the Congress at
\ ienna was a subject of some uncertainty. The expediency
1 •! an< >ther campaign in America might depend upon its issue.
5 in either hemisphere would warrant them in raising
their demands at their own discretion. Failure on either,
or even on both sides, would still leave them with a certainty
a peace as favorable as they could have any reasonable
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 201
pretence to require. They have accordingly confined their
plenipotentiaries to the task of wasting time. After spend-
ing more than two months upon a preliminary article, which
ultimately bore scarcely a feature of its original aspect, they
twice successively evaded our request for an interchange of
the projet of a treaty. They have at least started it as a
point of etiquette, and appear to consider it as an advantage
to receive the first draft instead of giving it. We have now
endeavored to gratify them in both respects. We have sent
them our projet and are now waiting for theirs. In the
meantime Lord Liverpool has avowed in the debates on the
Regent's speech that their demands and proposals are to be
regulated by circumstances, which implies that they are
not yet prepared to conclude. One of the latest ministerial
papers announces that the negotiation is not to succeed, and
that their plenipotentiaries are very shortly to return to
England. Of the latter part of their information I much
doubt; for although the progress of the negotiations at
Vienna daily strengthens the expectation that it will end
without any immediate disturbance of the peace of Europe,
it does not yet promise a state of permanent tranquillity
which would make the policy of continuing at all events the
war with America unquestionable.
I have received and shall forward by the Transit a packet
of dispatches for you from Mr. Harris at St. Petersburg. It
doubtless contains copies of the note which he addressed to
the Imperial Department of Foreign Affairs in relation to
Admiral Cockburn's proclamation of blockade of 25 April
last. I know not whether it is to be regretted that Mr. Har-
ris's note was not presented until after the Emperor's de-
parture for Vienna. He writes me that Mr. Weydemeyer at
his suggestion had written to Count Nesselrode, requesting
him to communicate directly to me the Emperor's answer
202
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
on the subject of the note. But I have not heard from the
0 mnt.
The popular sentiment throughout Europe has been, and
1 is, that the United States must sink in the present
struggle against the whole power of Great Britain. And
such is the British ascendancy over all the governments of
1 .rope, that even where the feelings of the people incline to
favor us, they dare not yet unequivocally express them.
The late events in America, as far as they are known here,
u-nded to produce some change in this respect. The de-
struction of the public buildings at Washington has been
publicly reprobated in some of the French gazettes, but it
has been defended in others. The general effect upon the
public opinion has been unfavorable to the English, but the
impression of their defeat at Baltimore, and especially of
the retreat from Plattsburg, has been much deeper. We shall
have no valuable friends in Europe until we have proved
that we can defend ourselves without them. There will be
friends enough, if we can maintain our own cause by our
own resources. . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, 22 November, 18 14.
We have not yet received from the British plenipoten-
tiaries a reply to the note which we sent them on Thursday
the 10th inst., but we find some notice of it in the English
apers. The Courier, an evening and ministerial paper,
"ii Monday the 14th, after referring to a paragraph in the
tte of this country, which had stated that nothing was
known of the state of the negotiation at Ghent, added that
enough however was known in England to ascertain that it
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 203
would not succeed, and that the British plenipotentiaries
might soon be expected home. The Morning Chronicle, an
opposition paper, on Tuesday, the 15th, stated that the
American ministers had in the course of the preceding week
delivered in a long note, which had been received at London
on Sunday morning, and that a Cabinet council had im-
mediately been held upon it at the foreign office. It mentions
also that there had been reports on Monday that we had
received instructions from America by the way of France;
but we had rejected the project offered by the British govern-
ment, and proposed another. The meeting of the Cabinet
council on Sunday the 13th has been confirmed by the sub-
sequent papers, and it is probable that a hint was given to
the editor of the Courier to prepare the expectation of the
public for the rupture. It is not true that we have rejected
the British project, for we have not yet been able to prevail
upon the British Cabinet council to produce any project at
all. They have made and retracted, and renewed and varied,
distinct propositions upon particular points, but have taken
special care to give us no project of a treaty. Nearly three
months ago they informed us that on one of the points upon
which we had rejected their demands, they should, as soon
as we had agreed upon another, have a proposal to make, so
fair and moderate and generous, that we could not possibly
reject it. We did finally agree a month since upon the other
point, since which we have not heard of the fair and generous
proposal. They have on the contrary told us in substance
that they had no proposal to make about it; and yet I fully
expect that if they do give us at least a project of a treaty,
we shall find it there. We have now asked them three times
for their project. The first time we offered to return them
ours immediately after receiving theirs. As they shuffled
in their answer, but hinted in a manner as if they were
204 THE WRITINGS OF J1814
of the suggestion, that there was an advantage in
■ eiving the first draft of a treaty instead of giving it, we
. tiered to exchange the two projects at the same time.
They replied by a pretension that they had partly furnished
. l because they had told us in substance all they meant
iand; and then again they squinted at the advantage
of receiving the first offer, and at some question of etiquette
which might be in the case. It was too plain that their ad-
vantage and their etiquette were nothing but devices for wast-
ing time; and so we sent them a complete project drawn up
in form, with nothing but blanks of time and place to fill to
make it a treaty. Had the British plenipotentiaries been
sent here honestly to make peace, this is what might and
should have been done before the twentieth of August on
both sides. The pretended etiquette is an absurdity. The
negotiation was proposed by the British government. It
was the business of the British government to present first,
in form as well as in substance, the terms upon which they
were willing to conclude the peace. When we were at Berlin,
\ 1 >u remember there was a treaty of commerce concluded
between the United States and Prussia. The first thing the
Prussian ministers did after they were appointed to treat
with me was to send me the project of a treaty in form. They
never hinted at any question of etiquette, and I am very
Mire this is the first time that such a pretension was ever
applied to such an occasion. Some of us expect that we
all now at least bring them to a point; but of this, not-
withstanding the threat in the Courier, I strongly doubt.
have as yet no information from America decisive as
to the issue of the campaign. . . .
I am not surprised that you should have been so much
affected by the vandalism at Washington. The disgust which
ob erve that the course of the British there gave at
i8i41 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 205
St. Petersburg, has been generally felt throughout Europe.
The whole transaction has done more injury to them than
to us, especially as Baltimore, Plattsburg, Lake Champlain,
and Fort Erie have since retrieved part of our loss of char-
acter, while they have tended to aggravate their disgrace.
By this time I believe that even your compassionating friends
in Russia begin to suspect that all America is not yet con-
quered. We have yet much to endure and go through; but
I trust we shall triumph at the last.
Our dinner to the British plenipotentiaries and Americans
on Friday was not remarkably gay, but it passed off with
all suitable decorum. Bentzon was extremely diverted with
my namesake the Doctor,1 who told us that he had not been
to the play in England these ten years, and described with
ecstacies of astonishment and delight the tricks that he had
seen performed by an Indian juggler, and the amazing ad-
dress with which he balanced straws upon his nose. Bentzon
declares that these two things taken together have given
him the exact measure of the man. . . .
TO ABIGAIL ADAMS
Ghent, 23 November, 18 14.
• ••••••
While the eyes and expectations of our country have been
so anxiously and so fruitlessly turning towards us for the
restoration of that peace for which she so earnestly longs,
ours are turned with anxiety equally deep towards her, for
those exertions and energies by which alone she will find
peace to be obtained. The British government, after ex-
hausting every expedient and every pretext to delay, sent
1 William Adams.
2o6 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
at last plenipotentiaries to meet us here, with formal full
.ers to conclude a peace and with orders, as appears by
ir proceedings, to do nothing more than to transmit our
imunications to the Cabinet Council in England, and the
answers of the Cabinet Council to us. This at least is all
that they have done hitherto. They began by making pro-
ions the most pacific and conciliatory, together with
demands the most extravagant and inadmissible. After
-testing two months and more upon mere preliminaries,
and abandoning so much of their demands that we found it
possible to agree to the rest, they came out with a proposal
entirely new, inconsistent with repeated declarations pre-
viously made by them, and which we could only reject in
the most pointed terms. The principle which the ministry
and their adherents in England had assumed was, that the
only peace to be made with America was one which should
be on the basis of unconditional submission by the Amer-
icans. They knew that we were not prepared to subscribe
to such terms, but they probably expected we should be at
the close of the campaign which they had prepared in Amer-
ica; or at least that their present successes would be suffi-
ciently great to keep the spirits and passions of their people
up to the tone of supporting another campaign to secure
their triumph. Hitherto the successes, as far as they are
known, have been too much balanced to have answered
their expectations. That of their attack upon Washington
intoxicated them to such a degree that they translated their
vutte account of it into all the principal languages and sent
it by special messengers all over Europe. That of Sir John
Sherbrook's expedition followed immediately after, and in
nu >re than one way flattered their dreams of conquest. Their
conduct at Washington, however, excited throughout Europe
a sentiment very different from that which they had ex-
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 207
pected, a sentiment of disgust at the Gothic barbarism of
their proceedings; and since then, their failure at Baltimore,
their defeat on Lake Champlain, their retreat from Platts-
burg, and the sortie of 17 September from Fort Erie, have
redeemed some of our disgraces, have aggravated theirs, and
now lead them to the anticipation of an issue to the campaign
more disastrous to them than I fear the event will realize.
My own greatest apprehensions during the whole summer
have been for Sackett's Harbor and our naval force on
Lake Ontario. There is where I have dreaded the severest
blow to us and the misfortune of the most important con-
sequences. My anxiety is far from being removed by the
accounts last received. Should the British succeed there,
or in any important enterprise in other quarters there will
be no possibility of obtaining peace. They have hitherto
met with no check of sufficient magnitude to discourage
them, and at present much slighter advantages than those
upon which they have calculated will satisfy them with
regard to the issue of the campaign.
It is a mortifying circumstance to one who feels for the
honor and interest of our country to find a British Prime
Minister boasting in Parliament, as the Earl of Liverpool
has done, that the infamous outrages of their troops in
America has been much more vindicated and justified by
Americans in American newspapers, than they have in
England itself. Still more of humiliation did I feel at his
assertion that the people of the district of which they have
taken possession, people of the state of Massachusetts, had
manifested a disposition to become British subjects. I
still indulge the hope that he has magnified into an expres-
sion of popular sentiment the baseness and servility of a
few individual sycophants, who may have intended merely
to save their property from plunder by paying court to the
20S
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
British commander. Deeply as the sordid spirit of faction
lias degraded my native state, I will not yet believe that the
lofty sentiment of independence has been extinguished in
the souls of any considerable portion of my countrymen, or
that they have sunk low enough in the scale of creation will-
ingly to become subjects of Great Britain.
European continent, after having presented for more
than twenty years a continual scene of bloodshed, horror and
devastation, has by a metamorphosis almost miraculous,
been suddenly transformed into a scene of universal peace,
though not yet of absolute tranquillity. The Congress as-
sembled at Vienna to distribute the plunder taken from
France, to settle the basis of a new balance for Europe, after
having twice been postponed, was to have been opened
formally on the first of this month. It does not, however,
yet appear what sort of a body this Congress will be, or what
will be their powers or duties. Several of the sovereigns en-
gaged in the late war, and the principal ministers of others,
have been at Vienna concerting their arrangements together
these two months. They have formed the real Congress for
the dispatch of business, and when they break up there will
be nothing of importance left for the other to do. It is al-
ready apparent enough that they will settle no permanent
system for the future repose of Europe, and perhaps the
attempt itself to accomplish such a plan would be chimerical.
It is equally evident that they will distribute their spoils
without immediately quarrelling among themselves. But
as England will be left in undisturbed possession of her
dominion of the seas, and as France will be left humiliated,
dissatisfied and yet formidable, there can be no doubt that
the peace of Europe will be neither solid nor permanent.
There will probably be no war during the next year and we
all, of course, according to all present appearances have
i8i41 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 209
again to contend single handed against the whole force of
Great Britain through the campaign of 18 15. But if we de-
fend ourselves manfully, Britain will at the close of the en-
suing year be glad to make peace with us upon terms to
which we can subscribe, or she will again have her hands full
in Europe.
As to the end of our present negotiation, I perceive no pros-
pect of it until our own government shall think proper to
bring it to a close. Hitherto it has been the purpose of the
British government to keep it open, and while they have con-
stantly avoided an approach to such conditions as we could
agree to, they have with equal care guarded against giving us
any solid ground upon which we would have been justified in
breaking it off. How far it may suit your policy to keep a
sort of permanent Congress together, waiting for the chapter
of accidents to bring the two parties to terms upon which
they can agree, it is not for me to determine. It is however
possible that the British Ministry may adopt a more deci-
sive course when their fiscal arrangements for the next year
are completed, or when they have more fully ascertained
the issue of the Congress at Vienna.
TO LEVETT HARRIS
Ghent, 24 November, 18 14.
Dear Sir:
I received yesterday your favor of the 2nd instant, and am
gratified in learning that the public sentiment at St. Peters-
burg so generally and decisively reprobated the conduct of
the Vandals at Washington. The same sentiment, so far
as I have had the opportunity of being informed, has been
2IO
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
universal throughout Europe, insomuch that even the opposi-
tion in both Houses of the British Parliament have avowed
their participation in it. The Ministry, like their representa-
tive in Russia, attempted to defend it on the pretence of
retaliation; but the real cause is the spirit of inveteracy and
rancor generally felt by the British nation against America.
The>' never have observed, and never will observe, towards
us the ordinary laws of war which they respect in their
quarrels with other nations. When the French National
C nvention issued a decree forbidding their troops to give
quarter to British and Hanoverian soldiers, the Duke of York
published a proclamation declaring that he would not re-
taliate by the like barbarity. But the Duke of York was
then fighting against Frenchmen. The hatred and revenge
rankling in the hearts of Britons against the French is deep
and deadly, but it is mercy and compassion when compared
with their malice against America. As to their pretence of
retaliation, if Lewiston, Georgetown, Frederick, Hampton,
and numberless minor instances of their atrocities did not
give it the lie, a test of its falsehood might be seen in their
application of it to their bombardment of the village of
Stonington. The officer who executed that act of barbarism
was not ashamed to allege as the occasion of it, that it was
in retaliation for the torpedoes that the town of Stonington
had been active in sending out against his Majesty's ships.
It appears, however, that the indignation of mankind at this
last brutal outrage at Washington has found its way even
to the sense of shame yet remaining in the British govern-
ment; for the ministers in Parliament have declared that
ciders had been sent to Cochrane no longer to carry into
effect his proclamation threatening to destroy and lay waste
all the t< >wns < >n the sea coast that he should find assailable.
Notwithstanding this, I have no expectation that the war
i8i4) JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 211
will be waged by them with more humanity than it has been.
We must expect and be prepared for more cruel and desolat-
ing war from them than from any other portion of mankind.
It is by no reliance upon good principles or passions in them
that we must defend ourselves against their enmity; it is
by energies of every kind on our own part that we must
achieve the triumph over it. Their success at Washington
and Alexandria is almost as disgraceful to us, I blush to say,
as to them. Since then, some events have occurred not less
ignominious to them, and which throw a veil over some of
our shame. We have indeed little to boast of in the defence
of Baltimore, or in the repulse of Prevost at Plattsburg.
The battle on Lake Champlain has maintained our naval
reputation, and added a new wreath to the glories of our
mariners. The sortie at Fort Erie, though less decisive in
its character, is distinguished as a military coup de main, and
the whole campaign on the Niagara frontier has been so
creditable to us that we have only to hope it may be termi-
nated with a perseverance of valor and good conduct, and
a continuation of good fortune adequate to crown it with
complete success.
By Mr. Milligan, who arrived here last evening from
London, we are informed that the Fingal had arrived there,
having left New York the 22nd of October.1 The John
Adams arrived at New York the 5th of that month. The
dispatches which we sent by Mr. Dallas have been all pub-
lished by our government, and I suppose you will see them
in the English newspapers by the time you receive this
letter. This circumstance may perhaps abridge the period
of our continuance here.2
1 Purviance came in this vessel with dispatches for the commissioners from
Washington.
2 Adams, Memoirs, November 24, 1814. "The English newspapers will have
2I2 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
I mil be obliged to you to obtain and forward to me a
passport for my return to St. Petersburg, as I presume it
v. ill be necessary for me on entering Russia. I am not sure
that I shall remain here long enough to receive it, but I
must take the chance. I am etc.
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, 25 November, 18 14.
. The John Adams arrived at New York on the 5 th of
October. Our dispatches by that vessel were communicated
to Congress, and immediately published, together with the
instructions of the government to us. Mr. Monroe writes
that they were producing the best effects, by uniting the
sentiments of all parties in support of the war. De Grand
writes me the same thing. The Ajax, the Dutch vessel that
given you full information of the publications which have taken place in America
of the first conferences at Ghent. Mr. Madison has acted most scandalously in
making this communication at the time he did; and his letter to the Congress,
which conveys the papers, contains a gross falsehood. We have no means of know-
ing what are the instructions which have been transmitted to the American Com-
missioners by the Fingal, but we sent an answer to their last note and projet on
M oday [the 21st], and a few days will therefore inform us whether we are likely
peace, or whether the American government will have advanced new pre-
iona in consequence of the clamour which they have excited throughout the
country on account of the demands brought forward by us in the month of August."
/ -rrpool to the Duke of Wellington, November 26, 1814. Wellington, Supplementary
patches, IX. 456. Wellington had written on the same day or even on the 25th,
.1 private note to Gallatin which was delivered on the 28th. The son describes it as
iched in the most friendly terms, assuring father he has brought all his weight
t>> hear to ensure peace. He goes on to say, 'as I gather Mr. Madison as well as
Mr. Monroe gave you full power to act, without even consulting your colleagues
on { >nsidcrcd of importance, I now feel that peace is shortly in view.
Mr. Goulbvrn has made crave errors and Lord Castlereagh has read him a sharp les-
■ James Gallatin, 34.
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 213
I have mentioned to you in several former letters, arrived
on Monday last, the 21st, after a passage of thirty-four days
from Boston, at the Texel. Mr. Bourne at Amsterdam
writes me that the accounts brought by her are of the same
nature; that there was but one voice upon the British pro-
posals, and that was to spurn them with indignation. What
those proposals were I dare say you will have seen when
this reaches you, for our letters to the government, and the
first note of the British plenipotentiaries to us, the note of
which I gave you an account in my letter of 23 August, are
now republished at full length in the English newspapers.
You will judge after reading it whether I had reason to
write you that it was impossible we should be detained here
beyond the first of September, unless it were for the arrange-
ment of our papers. The situation of things since then has
changed more in appearance than in reality. The British
government have withdrawn just so much of their inadmissi-
ble demands as would avoid the immediate rupture of the
negotiation. They have varied their terms at every com-
munication that has passed between their plenipotentiaries
and us. They have abandoned the claims which they had
declared indispensable preliminaries, only to bring them for-
ward again, whenever the circumstances of the war might
encourage them to insolence, and in my belief they are now
delaying their reply to our last note, which they have had
upwards of a fortnight, only to receive accounts of success
from America, which will countenance them in rejecting our
proposal, and assuming to dictate to us new terms of dis-
honor and submission.
That they will be highly exasperated by the publication
of the dispatches we have every reason to expect, from the
manner in which it has affected their plenipotentiaries. We
met them last evening at the redoute, and gave them the
2I THE WRITINGS OF [1814
first information of this event. They had not received their
. of Saturday last, and expected their messenger this
They expressed much astonishment at the publica-
1 of dispatches pending a negotiation, and Mr. Goulburn,
who is of an irritable nature, could not contain his temper.
I knew too well the character of the American government
and people to doubt that such dispatches as Dallas carried
out would be immediately published, and assuredly the
British government have no right to complain of it. Mr.
I 1 latin thinks they will break off the negotiation upon it,
and if they do, it will only relieve us from the humiliation
of being kept here in attendance upon their insulting caprices,
and insidious tergiversations. We have been here five
months, enduring everything, rather than break off while
a possibility of peace remained. If they choose to break for
an act of our government in which we had no share, the
blame will be none of ours, and if that act was merely dis-
closing to the world the degradation and infamy which
under professions of moderation and magnanimity they of-
fered us as their terms of peace, our government will stand
justified before heaven and earth for having done it. In
our dispatches from the Secretary of State there are two
things that have given me the highest gratification. The
first is, that we have the entire approbation of the President
for the determination we had declared, that we should reject
the British proposals. The second is this. You will recol-
lect that in my letter to you of the nth of this month I in-
formed you that I had obtained, not without difficulty, the
unanimous consent of my colleagues to insert in our last
note to the British plenipotentiaries a proposal, the only
cue upon which, as I believed, there was the remotest pos-
sibility that we should ultimately obtain peace, and from
which we should, as I also hoped, derive great advantage,
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 215
even if it should be rejected. The principal objection against
it was that it was not authorized, but was even forbidden by
our instructions. This I admitted, but urged that we ought
to take upon ourselves the responsibility of making it on
the full conviction that our government would now approve
of it. I told you that I was strenuously supported by both
my original colleagues, and finally obtained the acquiescence
of the others to make the proposal. In the instructions that
we have now received, dated 19 October, we are expressly
authorized to make the same identical offer. The heaviest
responsibility therefore, that of having trespassed upon our
instructions, is already removed. The effects of the measure
are yet to be seen. I trust they will, under either issue of
the negotiation, be good. . . .
The Massachusetts legislature have appointed twelve
delegates to meet others from the rest of the New England
states, on the 15th of December, at Hartford in Connecticut,
to organize a separate system of defense, and a new con-
federacy of their own. This is a dangerous measure, but I
hope it will not have all the pernicious effects to be appre-
hended from it. . . .
TO PETER PAUL FRANCIS DE GRAND
Ghent, 27 November, 18 14.
• ••••••
I wrote you on the 23 rd of July that we had then been
here a full month waiting for the appearance of the British
commissioners who were to meet us. More than another
fortnight passed before they came. Yet this negotiation
had been invited by the British government, and I had been
by extraordinary circumstances two months in coming from
Zl6 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
St. Petersburg while it could not have taken the British
plenipotentiaries to arrive here from London at any time
than four days. When they arrived, you are now in-
med with what professions and with what propositions
the}' commenced the negotiation with us. Since then, and
until this day, they have been changing their proposals at
every official note they have sent us, without any other ap-
parent object for the present than to avoid both the conclu-
sion of a peace and the rupture of the negotiation. They
have been every month sending out to America reinforce-
ments of troops and supplies of every description, and there
is every reason to believe that they have calculated, and
still calculate, upon crushing all resistance on the part of the
I :.ited States, and upon reducing them to unconditional sub-
mission. These are the terms upon which alone the minis-
terial partisans and gazettes have insisted that peace can
be granted to America.
They have been hitherto disappointed in their expecta-
tions. Their defeat upon Lake Champlain, though impor-
tant in its consequences, and though one of the most bril-
liant achievements that have covered our naval heroes with
glory, has produced less sensation in England and upon the
continent of Europe than might have been expected. The
cause of this is that our reputation for sea-fighting is fully
tablished. It has henceforth only to be maintained. It
i perfectly understood throughout Europe that upon the
ter, with equal forces the American flag will generally
be victorious over the British. No surprise has anywhere
been manifested at this new triumph of American mariners.
I British nation has become so familiarized with this kind
• r. , as the Regent calls it in his speech, that they no
: feel it as a mortification. Their government, too, in
der that the people may have less occasion to reflect upon
isi4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 217
disasters, have resorted, I believe for the first time in British
annals, to the expedient of withholding from publication
their own official accounts of the event. Not a word has to
this day appeared in the Gazette about the action of the Wasp
with the Reindeer, or with the Avon. And although the
Ministers have acknowledged in Parliament that they
had received dispatches from Sir G. Prevost, dated in Octo-
ber, a month after his retreat from Plattsburg, yet they de-
clared they should publish nothing but the list of killed and
wounded, because the official report from their naval com-
mander on the lake had not been received.
The atrocious system of warfare which they have adopted
has been one of the means upon which they have relied for
breaking down the spirit of the American people. They
pretend that they were provoked to it and practised it on
the principle of retaliation. But we know that Admiral Coch-
rane went out with instructions for it from England. But
such an universal sentiment of disgust has been manifested
at it throughout Europe, that they now say they have sent
out new instructions to their Admiral not to persist in it
any longer. The great effect of the present campaign, so far
as it is yet known, has been to raise our military reputation
upon the land. The events on the Niagara frontier have
redeemed much of the character which we had lost by the
issue of the preceding campaign, and Prevost's retreat from
Plattsburg has at least taken from the British all right of
deriding us for any of our former discomfitures.
.,. THE WRITINGS OF [1814
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, 29 November, 18 14.
My letter of Friday last informed you of the arrival of
the Fingal at Havre, and of the dispatches from the govern-
ment brought by her that we had received. I should at the
same time have told you that the Ajax, the Dutch vessel in
which Mr. Changuion went to America, arrived on the 21st
inst. at the Texel, after a passage of thirty-four days from
Boston. I now add by way of episode that the Dutch govern-
ment have already concluded to recall the said Mr. Chan-
guion, with the intention, as we hear, of sending him to
Constantinople. This incident is of no great importance to
. and perhaps it may be accounted for without recurring
to the supposition of any foreign influence upon the councils
of the Sovereign Prince. The measure of sending him out
v. as a manifestation of a friendly disposition towards us at
a critical moment, and as such was estimated by our country.
His recall before the crisis has passed may perhaps cancel
some part of the obligation which a mere act of national
courtesy might be supposed to confer by the circumstances
of the moment at which it was performed. But as in the
actual state of things our country has the most decisive proof
at what value she is to estimate the friendship of Europe,
I trust that with the blessing of God she will prove her-
If competent to her own defense, without needing the aid
< if that friendship for any part of her support. . . .
The proceedings of the legislature of Massachusetts are
the worst feature in our public transactions. I am not sur-
prised at them, because I have known more than ten years
the views of the party by which they have been carried, and
cause I have been nearly as long convinced that this in-
l8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 219
ternal ulcer in our body-politic must and would sooner or
later come to its head and break. I have been also fully
prepared to see the demon of disunion show himself in his
hideous shape, and gradually throw off his disguise in propor-
tion as the dangers and distresses of the country should
become imminent and severe. But at this moment how
fearfully does this mad and wicked project of national suicide
bear upon my heart and mind, when I have the profoundest
conviction that if we now fail to obtain peace, it will be
owing entirely to this act of the Massachusetts legislature.
On Sunday we received a note from the British plenipoten-
tiaries, together with our own project of a treaty, with their
remarks and proposals upon it. They have rejected without
exception everything that we had demanded on the part of
the United States; but they have abandoned everything
important that was inadmissible of their own demands.
The objects upon which they still insist, and which we cannot
yield, are in themselves so trifling and insignificant that
neither of the two nations would tolerate a war for them.
We have everything but peace in our hands. But in these
trifles, in the simple consideration of interest, they have left
involved principles to which we cannot accede. They have
given up without qualification all demand for a cession of
territory, either for the Indians, or for themselves; but they
have attempted to secure by an article ambiguously drawn,
the possession of perhaps a few hundred acres of land, which
we can no more give up, than we could a whole state in our
union. There are other points totally unimportant, but
implicating our national honor, to which they still adhere.
We cannot agree to them, and if they finally persist in re-
quiring it of us, the negotiation must break off. By reducing
the controversy between us to points so infinitely small in
themselves, but upon which we cannot yield without dis-
220
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
grace, it is evident that the British government are now
sensible of the difficulty and danger to themselves of con-
tinuing the war; and that nothing could induce them to it
but the encouragement held out to them by this prospect of
the dissolution of our Union. It is remarkable that these
remnants of inadmissible claims are pointed against the
state of Massachusetts alone, and that we have at present
nothing to contend for, but rights peculiarly enjoyed by her
and her citizens. We shall maintain them with firmness,
and may the great disposer of events and Ruler of Hearts
grant that we may maintain them effectually! For the first
time I now entertain hope that the British government is
inclined to conclude the peace. Whether they have found •
that the Congress of Vienna has not been so propitious to
their supreme ascendancy in Europe as they had expected;
< ir that the prospects of their campaign in America will prob-
ably terminate in disappointment; or that on the disclosure
of their original demands, their own people are not prepared
to squander their blood and treasure for a war of conquest
in North America, I cannot determine; but certain it is as
the Chancellor of the Exchequer has very significantly said
in the House of Commons, that the state of the negotiation
in November is quite a different thing from the state of the
negotiation in August. We are now in sight of port. Oh!
that we may reach it in safety! . . .
On the publication of our dispatches the federalists in
( ngress came out in the most explicit and decisive manner,
laring their determination to support the war at all
hazards and every sacrifice against the new British demands
and pretensions. The speeches of Mr. Hanson * and Mr.
arc reprinted in the English papers. The gov-
1 Alexander Contce Hanson, of Maryland (1786-1819).
1 Thomas Jackson Oakley, of New York (1783-1857).
l8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 221
ernor of Vermont had already published a proclamation in
the same spirit. Even the report to the Massachusetts leg-
islature recommending their New England delegation whin-
ingly complains that the enemy did not discriminate in his
hostility between the supporters and the opponents of the war.
The state of our finances is very bad. Mr. G. W. Camp-
bell has resigned the office of Secretary of the Treasury, and
Mr. Dallas has taken his place.1 Mr. Monroe has been ap-
pointed Secretary of War. The Department of State is not
yet filled. The elections for Congress are taking place in
several of the states. The changes are, as far as they are
known, about equal on both sides. I indulge a hope that
the extremities of the times will produce a coalition of parties
and an administration combining all the respectable interests
of the country. . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, 2 December, 18 14.
. . . The news from America which you must have re-
ceived since writing this letter of the 6th [November] has
been more cheering than the preceding accounts. We have
had a series of very important successes, and they have to-
tally changed the face of the war, the expectations of all
Europe with regard to its issue, and above all the tone of the
British government in the negotiation here. The latest in-
cident, the taking of Sackett's Harbor and of Chauncey's
fleet, was not officially confirmed in London last Saturday.
There is a bare possibility that it may not be true. If it is,
our prospects of peace will be as desperate as ever.
By the observations which you make upon the dispositions
of my colleagues, I apprehend I may have expressed myself
1 Dallas took office, October 6, 18 14.
222 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
too strongly upon the spirit of concession and the language
1 -nciliation, which I wrote you they carried a little beyond
• point where I would have stopped. In the concession to
which I finally and most reluctantly agreed, my ideas, as I
wrote you, did not exactly correspond with theirs with re-
j to its extent. We accepted an article presented to us
the British plenipotentiaries as the last word of the British
government on the subject. Two of my colleagues at least,
perhaps all of them, give to that article a construction much
more limited than I do. They were therefore not so averse
to accepting it as I was. They thought it amounted to little
or nothing. I thought it meant so much that I offered then
to reject it even at the hazard of breaking off the negotia-
tion upon it, if they would concur with me. They preferred
accepting the article, because they understood the meaning
differently from me. Though I have no doubt the British
government understand it as I do, yet as my colleagues are
all intelligent men, their construction of the article may be
the right one, and if so the concession was certainly a mere
trifle, and it would have been wrong to risk a rupture by
rejecting it. I finally agreed with them in accepting the
article, with adopting their opinion of its meaning. It was
therefore natural that I should think the concession much
greater than they did, and by concurring with them I ac-
quiesced in their judgment rather than adhere inflexibly to
my own. As to the notice which it was proper to take of the
acrimonious language used in all the British notes, I incline
upon cool consideration to the belief that they have acted
prudently in retrenching almost all the manifestations of
temper which I have inserted in my drafts of papers to be
ent as answers to the British plenipotentiaries. Even as it
was, the t«.nc as well as the substance of our first note was
quite unexpected to the British government, and there has
■i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 223
been no occasion since in which we have faltered from it,
excepting in that note accepting the article. I was then for
speaking in bolder terms and for a stronger expression of
feeling than was thought advisable. My colleagues shared
in all my feelings, but thought it best to suppress them.
Perhaps if we had yielded to the irritation excited by the
British note, we should have only produced irritation in
return, and the chance of peace would have been still more
unpromising than it is. We are at this moment in the great-
est and most trying crisis of the negotiation. Until the note
we received from the British plenipotentiaries last Sunday,
I never indulged a hope of peace. It was impossible, with
the demands which they had successively advanced, and
none of which they had explicitly abandoned before. Now
they have removed every insuperable obstacle, important
in itself, and have hung the issue upon a hair. Yet even while
surrendering their great principle upon everything of value,
they cling to it upon a grain of sand, and they have attempted
by ambiguities of expression to filch from us crumbs and
atoms of that which they had first endeavored to extort from
us entire. We answered the day before yesterday their note,
and asked a conference at their own time and place.1 They
immediately appointed yesterday, noon, at their own house.
We went and were with them about three hours. We con-
sented to give up almost everything of what they had ob-
jected to, in our proposals; but there were left some points
upon which we insisted. They removed one of the greatest
remaining difficulties. They definitely rejected one claim
upon which we had invited further discussion, and there are
still three upon which we could come to no agreement.2 It
1 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, III. 741.
2 See Adams, Memoirs, December 1, 1814; Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XLVIII.
151-
224 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
was apparent that they were very desirous of signing the
treat)' upon the terms they have now offered, but they man-
d it in their usual manner by airs of arrogance and
intimated threats. In the first note they sent us, which is
w published, they gave us notice that if we did not agree
without even a reference to our government to their terms,
they would not hold themselves bound by their own offers,
but would vary their demands according to circumstances.
Our answer to that threat was the rejection of their terms,
with the information that we had no need of referring to
our government concerning them. Their last note contains
the same threat — that if we did not accept their offers now,
the>- would not be bound by them hereafter. And yesterday
two of the plenipotentiaries told us time after time that they
must refer again to their government upon our objections,
and that if new pretensions should be raised, they could only
say they were now authorized to sign a treaty on the terms
they had offered us. Mr. Clay at last told them that we
did not doubt but they were ready to sign upon their own
terms. I must do Lord Gambier the justice to say that he
has never in conference practised this resort to the argument
of a bully. We know very well that they will not hold them-
selves bound by their offers at any time, if they have the
least encouragement to increase their demands after they
are made. We are sure that nothing less than great dis-
appointment both in Europe and America could have
brought them down to their present terms, and we are sufh-
ciently apprized that the smallest turn of affairs would make
them immediately renew all their most insolent demands,
and advance others still more extravagant. We, however,
are not altogether such creatures of sunshine and of rain.
We must adhere to our principles through good and evil
fortune. If the British government really intend to make
i8i4) JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 225
peace when their next messenger arrives from Ghent, we
may have it upon his return; if not, we shall have in all
probability the certainty of a rupture.1
I shall not have time to answer my dear Charles's letter
this day. We are as much oppressed with occupation as we
have been at any period since our arrival here. We have
nevertheless as much dissipation as we can wish. We have
redoutes and concerts twice a week, and the French theatre
four times. A company of strolling English players came
last week, and perform this evening for the fourth and last
time. They solicited our permission to advertise themselves
as performing under the patronage of the American ministers.
They were advised that it would be their best expedient to
fill the house. We did not, however, comply with their
request. . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, 6 December, 18 14.
... It is the opinion of all my colleagues that we shall
finish here before the close of the year. I think that however
doubtful. They are at the same time much more sanguine
than I am that we shall sign a peace. The last step of the
1 "As to the disputed phrase in the ist Article, I think the Americans mean to
yield; but we should be equally obliged to you to tell us whether you think it worth
insisting upon, as we may be mistaken in our opinion of the intentions of the Amer-
icans. They certainly evinced no anxiety to sign the treaty now. We told them
that if they would concede the disputed Article, we were ready to sign immediately;
but that if by declining they compelled us to refer home upon that point, we must
be understood as not being bound to accede to the Articles already agreed on. This,
however, produced no effect, and we therefore await your final instructions."
Goulburn to Earl Bathurst, December I, 1814. Wellington, Supplementary Des-
patches, IX. 460. On the same day Liverpool wrote to Castlereagh of the "favour-
able turn of the negotiations at Ghent."
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
British government has brought us so near, that if it was
made in sincerity we cannot fail to conclude. But independ-
ent of the distrust which we ought to have for every act of
an enemy who has been carrying on at the same time such a
r and such a negotiation, there is something insidious in
their last proposals which forbids all confidence in them.
They appear to abandon the whole of their former inadmis-
sible' demands, and under the artifice of ambiguous expres-
sions and of passing over without notice an important part
of our preceding note, they cling to objects of no value, but
involving principles which we cannot yield with honor. They
were so far from being fairly disclosed on the face of their
note, that it was only at the conference that we brought out
the avowal of them. At the same time the temper of two
of the British commissioners x was as acrimonious and in-
veterate as it has been at any period of the negotiation. It
is therefore impossible for me to confide in the smooth
promises of the present state of things. An adversary who,
after demanding empires as an indispensable preliminary,
falls to playing pushpin for straws, deserves anything but
confidence. They have also adhered to their professed
policy of varying their proposals according to circumstances,
and have told us now, as they did when they demanded a
surrender of about one-third part of our territory, that if
we do not give them what they ask at present, they will
hereafter claim more if they dare.
If, upon the return of the messenger they have now dis-
patched, we have to deal with the same quibbling, equivocat-
ing, pettifogging spirit that we have found in all their trans-
actions hitherto, we shall not finish without more references
England, and probably not in the course of the present
year. The report of a probability that peace will be made
1 Guulburn and Adams.
i8i4) JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 227
is now much circulated all over England. The prospect at
Vienna is certainly not so flattering as had been anticipated.
The issue of the campaign in America is yet not ascertained.
If the confirmation of the taking of Sacketts Harbor and
Chauncey's fleet reaches London before the answer is dis-
patched to us, we may still have to linger here for months
without coming to any conclusion. . . .
The tone of all the English newspapers has changed so
much in their notices of American affairs, that the Times,
the most rancorous and abusive of them all, has published
a letter from Canada, saying that if England intends to
maintain her dominions in America, she must send out troops
not by thousands or tens of thousands, but by hundreds of
thousands. . . .
The English strolling Jews are not yet gone. After being
refused our patronage, they obtained that of Lord Gambier,
and play three times again this week. They took our five
Napoleons for five tickets, and then to show their loyalty,
concluded their play by singing God save the King on the
stage. The joke was not so good as it would have been if we
had granted them our patronage.
TO LEVETT HARRIS
Ghent, 8 December, 18 14.
Dear Sir:
The popular sentiment throughout Europe is favorable
to us in our present contest with Great Britain; and since
the publication in America of the instructions to the mission
at this place, and of our dispatches that were transmitted by
Mr. Dallas, it is manifest to the world that Great Britain
228 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
has entirely changed the objects of the war, and carries it
on henceforth for purposes of conquest in North America.
The maritime questions make no figure in our negotiation,
whatever they may do at the Congress of Vienna. I do not
credit the report that any of them have been brought for-
ward by the French plenipotentiaries. I suppose you are
not ignorant of the stipulation which Great Britain exacted
last spring, and to which France was required to accede,
and did accede before Louis XVIII left England, that no
maritime question should be discussed at Vienna. France
therefore has upon that question been tongue tied; and not-
withstanding all the newspaper rumors it appears that very
little respect or regard has been shown by the other powers
at Vienna to anything that the French plenipotentiaries have
said or written upon other subjects. England openly and
avowedly makes the Congress at Vienna a league against
France, and at the same time exacts of the French govern-
ment measures of subserviency which they have not the
fortitude to refuse.
We have received instructions from our government, in
answer to the dispatches which we had sent by the John
Adams. You will see in the English newspapers what those
dispatches were. The President has entirely approved our
determination unanimously to reject the demands upon
which alone the British government had declared that they
would negotiate. We did reject them, and yet Great Britain
did negotiate. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has very
truly stated in Parliament that the negotiation in November
i a very different thing from the negotiation in August;
but you must not lightly credit the rumors now circulated
in England that there is a fair prospect of a successful issue
to the conferences. Many of the insurmountable obstacles
to the conclusion of a peace have been removed; there still
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 229
remain, however, enough to disappoint any hopes that we
could have derived from the removal of the rest, and we have
no reason for confiding that others will not yet be raised; for
one of the circumstances under which we have been all along
compelled to treat has been a notification, frequently re-
peated, that our antagonists will hold themselves bound to
abide by none of their own terms, unless immediately ac-
cepted; and that they will rise in their demands whenever
encouraged so to do by success in the war. Nor has this
been an empty menace held up in terrorem. It has on one
occasion been carried into effect, and a new pretension
advanced upon the first appearance of success in America,
which was again abandoned when the subsequent accounts
of disaster had been received.
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, 9 December, 18 14.
... I speak of it as doubtful whether we shall finish here
before the spring, because notwithstanding the present com-
plexion of the rumors and prevailing opinions in England,
the prospect of peace is very little brighter than it has been
at our gloomiest hours. We may now from day to day re-
ceive the answer from England to our last proposals and the
result of the conference we had with the plenipotentiaries
on the first of this month. My belief is that the trying
moment will be then. But you have drawn inferences from
some of my former letters which make some explanation nec-
essary. There has never been one moment of unnecessary
delay on our part. I did upon one occasion offer to my col-
leagues to stand out upon a point where the British told us
230
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
they had spoken their last word. No one of my colleagues
concurred with me at that time, and I have told you the
reason. They differed from me as to the extent and meaning
of the concession. I acquiesced in their judgment. On
another occasion we altered a measure upon which a majority
had agreed, because one gentleman ! refused to sign the
paper upon the substance of which we had taken a deter-
mination. On a third occasion a proposal of my own which
had been rejected by my colleagues when first presented,
was renewed by me from a deep conviction of its importance,
and was finally agreed to by them. It was, as I have written
you, not then authorized by our instructions, though fully
warranted by those we have since received. In all these
transactions you will perceive that the great principle which
has prevailed among us all has been that of mutual concilia-
tion and deference to the opinions of one another. If my
colleagues had concurred with me in the first instance to
which I refer, probably the negotiation would then have
broken off. If we are finally to break, it would certainly
have been better for us to have broken then. If we finally
get a good peace, it will as certainly be better than it would
have been to have broken upon that point. As to the second
instance, we have now, at a later period, made the proposal
to which our colleague then refused to subscribe, and he has
now assented to it. With regard to the third I am still per-
suaded that if we do obtain peace, it will be the effect of
that proposal. I ought therefore gratefully to acknowledge
that if I have occasionally been under the necessity of sacri-
ficing my opinions to those of my colleagues, they have been
equally liberal and indulgent to me. . . .
1 Clay.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 231
NOTE TO THE BRITISH COMMISSIONERS l
December 12, 1814.
The undersigned had flattered themselves that the objects
in discussion between his Britannic Majesty's Plenipoten-
tiaries and them had been so far reduced by the principles
which had in the course of the negotiation been agreed upon,
and by the comparative minuteness of the few remaining
interests to be adjusted, that a mutual accommodation upon
those few subjects would be facilitated by the means of
verbal conferences, rather than by the more formal inter-
change of official notes. They were induced by this con-
sideration to request the conference of the first instant which
led to those of last Saturday and of yesterday. Perceiving,
however, that the result of them has been to leave those
points unsettled, and that the British plenipotentiaries still
require of the undersigned on them concessions which the
undersigned are not authorized to yield, they find themselves
again reluctantly compelled to state in writing their objec-
tions to the only parts of the projected treaty, proposed to
them by the British plenipotentiaries, and to which the
undersigned have declared their inability to accede.
While they express their deep regret that upon these points
the views of the British plenipotentiaries appear to be yet
so widely variant from their own, they cannot but indulge
the hope that objects of so trivial comparative interest will
not be permitted to defeat the important purpose of peace
which both governments have so earnestly at heart.
The first of these points relates to the mutual restoration
of territory taken by either party from the other during the
1 The note sent, dated December 14, is in American State Papers, Foreign Rela-
tions, III. 743. See Adams, Memoirs, December 12, 1814.
232 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
war. In admitting this principle, which the undersigned
had repeatedly declared to be the only one upon which they
were authorised to treat, the British plenipotentiaries have
proposed an alteration in the article offered by the under-
signed, and the effect of which is avowed by the British
plenipotentiaries to be, to except from its operation the
nds in Passamaquoddy Bay — islands taken by military
force since the commencement of this negotiation, and of
which contrary to the general principle adopted as the basis
of the negotiation it is now professed to be intended by the
British government to retain possession.
It was stated by one of the British plenipotentiaries in
conference, that this would be no deviation from the ad-
mitted principles of the status ante helium; but the under-
signed have been unable to comprehend upon what grounds
this position was assumed. That the right to those islands
is claimed by Great Britain can be no reason for refusing to
restore them to the situation in which they were previous
to the commencement of the war, since by the mutual agree-
ment of the parties a method is provided for the final adjust-
ment of that claim.
In requiring that these islands should, like all other terri-
tory taken during the war, be returned at the peace, the
undersigned have no wish to prejudge the question concern-
ing the title to them. They are willing expressly to provide
that the restoration shall not be understood to impair or in
any manner affect any right which the party restoring may
have to the territory restored. But the consent by them that
territory taken by military force during the war should be
retained after the peace would be equivalent to the admis-
sion ol a title to that possession in Great Britain which they
are not and cannot be authorised by the government of the
I mted States to make. They are authorised to agree to a
,8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 233
suitable provision for the settlement of a disputed right, and
the possession will of course follow the decision upon that
question. But they cannot agree that possession taken by
force during the war should be sanctioned by their consent
previous to the decision upon the right.
The objection of the undersigned to the words originally
proposed by the British plenipotentiaries, limiting the prom-
ise of restoring territory taken during the war to territory be-
longing to the party from which it was taken, was that they
left it in the power of one party to judge whether any por-
tion of territory taken by itself did or did not belong to the
other; and that it thereby opened a new door to dispute in
the very execution of an article intended to close an old one.
This objection having been removed by the offer of the
British plenipotentiaries to confine the operation of the ex-
ception to the islands above mentioned, the undersigned
deem it unnecessary further to notice it.
Should the British government finally adhere to the de-
termination of excepting those islands from the general
principle of a mutual restoration of captured territory, the
undersigned will be reduced to the alternative of subscribing
to a condition without authority from their government, or
of terminating the negotiation by their refusal.
The stipulation now proposed by Great Britain as a sub-
stitute for the last paragraph of the eighth article as pre-
viously proposed by the British plenipotentiaries, appears
equally objectionable; as a stipulation merely that the parties
will hereafter negotiate concerning the rights in question,
it appears unnecessary. Should the parties both be hereafter
disposed to such a negotiation, no stipulation can be needed
for the purpose. Should either of them be averse to nego-
tiating, the stipulation would be unavailing to the other.
The undersigned are not aware what claim Great Britain
234 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
can have to the navigation of the Mississippi, unless she
found that claim on the article in the peace of 1783. If she
founds it on that article, she must admit the claim of the
I nited States to the fisheries within British jurisdiction
a red by the same treaty. The United States asks no new
article on the subject. The undersigned have offered to
accede to a new article confirming both the rights. They
have offered to be silent with regard to both. To any stipu-
lation abandoning the right as claimed by the United States
they cannot subscribe. The undersigned must here repeat
an observation already made by them in conference. That
the demand by the British plenipotentiaries for an article
to secure to British subjects the navigation of the Mississippi
has been made since the undersigned had been assured that
the note from the British plenipotentiaries of 21 October
contained all the demands of Great Britain; and that no
trace of it is to be found in that note.
The undersigned have the same remark to make with
respect to the two new articles proposed by the British pleni-
potentiaries. They are both liable to considerable objec-
tions. From an earnest desire to comply with any proposi-
tion which may be acceptable to the British government,
and to which they can accede, the undersigned will agree to
the substance of the article to promote the abolition of the
slave-trade. The other article appears to the undersigned
unnecessary. The courts of the United States will without
it be equally open to British subjects; and they reply that
without it the British courts will be equally open to citizens
of the United States.
i8i4J JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 235
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, 13 December, 18 14.
. . . Last Friday the messenger of the British plenipo-
tentiaries returned from London, and they requested a con-
ference for the next morning.1 It was held at our house and
lasted three hours.2 We had yesterday another of equal
length at theirs; and the result has been as I wrote you on
Friday that I expected it would be.3 The negotiation labors
at this moment more than it ever has done before. I distrust
more and more the sincerity of the British government, who
after having formally abandoned everything of the value of
a nut-shell in their demands, hold out inflexibly upon the
paltriest trifles directly in the face of their general conces-
sions, and seemingly for the purpose of preventing our ac-
ceptance of them. You are not mistaken in your conjectures
1 For the instructions brought by him see Letters and Despatches of Lord Castle-
reagh, X. 214. They favored a peace.
2 American State Papers, Foreign Relations, III. 743; Adams, Memoirs, Decem-
ber 10, 1814. "At a conference today we did our utmost to give effect to your
wishes as conveyed to us in the last despatch. What the result will be cannot be
known until the Americans have finished their deliberations. They certainly re-
ceived our propositions with a better grace than usual, and if any judgment can be
formed as to their future intentions from their manner at this day's conference, I
should conclude that they were not prepared to make a very serious resistance,
except perhaps upon that part of the new Article which states the right to the
fishery to be derived from the treaty of 1783." Goulburn to Earl Bathurst, Decem-
ber 10, 1814. Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 471. Again Wellington
wrote about the 10th to Gallatin giving assurance of his support for peace. ' Pray
do not take offence at what I say. In you I have the greatest confidence.
I hear on all sides that your moderation and sense of justice together with your
good common sense place you above all the other delegates, not excepting ours.
The Emperor Alexander has assured me of this. He says he can place absolute
reliance in your word. I have always had the greatest admiration for the country
of your birth. You are a foreigner, with all the traditions of one fighting for the
peace and welfare of the country of your adoption." Diary of James Gallatin, 34.
3 Adams, Memoirs, December 12, 1814; Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XL VIII.
157-
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
that I have suffered much in mind— very little however,
m any disagreement with my colleagues. Our harmony
has been as cordial as perhaps ever existed between five
persons charged with so important and so difficult a trust.
But it is the temper in the British notes and in the confer-
ences on the part of two of the British plenipotentiaries
which brings mine to the severest of trials. You know all
the good and all the evil of my disposition; but you cannot
know the violence of the struggle to suppress emotions pro-
duced by the provocations of overbearing insolence and
narrow understandings. They have, however, been sup-
pressed. But after the last two conferences we are apparently
farther from the conclusion than we were before them. The
British plenipotentiaries present to us articles sent to them
ready drawn from England, and when we ask what they
nuan, what the object of them is, they answer they cannot
tell; the article was sent them from England, we must con-
strue it for ourselves. If we propose the alteration of a word,
they must refer it to their government. If we ask for an
explanation, they must refer it to their government. It is
precisely the French caricature of Lord Malmesbury. "My
I. rd, I hope your Lordship is well this morning." . . .
"Indeed, Sir, I do not know, but I will send a courier to my
Court and inquire." And thus all we have obtained from
the two conferences of three hours each is, another courier
t<> the Court to inquire. We are to send them a note, and
they are to dispatch it by a messenger for fresh instructions.
1 hope the note will go this day; perhaps not until tomorrow.
ere can be no answer sooner than the 21st, and even then
it may be merely matter for more discussion, and more mes-
rrs. In the meantime we still keep personally upon eat-
■ and drinking terms with them. We are to dine with them
this day.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 2
j/
Speaking of English ambassadors in France reminds me
of his Grace the Duke of Wellington. It appears that he
does not trouble himself to use much ceremony with the
French noblesse. He goes to gala dinners in frock and boots,
and makes the company wait for him by the hour. Then
to apologize for delay he says he has been making a prom-
enade in the Bois de Boulogne. The story goes that Marshal
Macdonald told him that if he was fond of that walk, he
should be happy to meet him there. But the ladies have
given him the best chastisement; they call him Monsieur le
Due de Vilain ton. . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, 16 December, 18 14.
My Best Friend,
This appellation reminds me of an occurrence on Monday
last, which I may tell you exactly as it happened, and which
will show you the sort of tone which my colleagues observe
with me, and I with them. We had been three hours in
conference with the British plenipotentiaries, and it had
been perhaps the most unpleasant one that we have held
with them. We had returned home, and were in session
conversing together upon what had been passing in the con-
ference, when Mr. Clay remarked that Mr. Goulburn was a
man of much irritation. Irritability, said I, is the word,
Mr. Clay, irritability; and then fixing him with an earnest
look, and the tone of voice between seriousness and jest, I
added "like somebody else that I know." Clay laughed,
and said "Aye, that we do; all know him, and none better
than yourself." And Mr. Gallatin, fixing me exactly as I
had done Mr. Clay, said emphatically, "that is your best
-
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
friend." "Agreed," said I, "but one" — and we passed on
in perfect good humor to another topic. There was, however,
truth in the joking on all sides. Of the five members of the
American mission the Chevalier has the most perfect control
of his temper, the most deliberate coolness; and it is the
more meritorious because it is real self-command. His feel-
ings are as quick, and his spirit as high as those of anyone
among us; but he certainly has them more under govern-
ment. I can scarcely express to you how much both he and
Mr. Gallatin have risen in my esteem since we have been
here, living together. Mr. Gallatin has not quite so constant
a supremacy over his own emotions; yet he seldom yields
to an ebullition of temper, and recovers from it immediately.
He has a faculty, when discussion grows too warm of turning
off its edge by a joke, which I envy him more than all his
other talents, and he has in his character one of the most
extraordinary combinations of stubbornness and of flexibility
that I ever met within man. His greatest fault I think to
be an ingenuity sometimes intrenching upon ingenuousness.
Our next personage in the sensitive scale is Mr. Russell.
As the youngest member of the mission he has taken the
least active part in the business, and scarcely any at the
conferences with the British plenipotentiaries. He is more
solitary and less social in his disposition than the rest of us,
and after living with us two months, left us and took separate
lodgings for some trifling personal convenience or saving of
expense. He nevertheless bears his proportion of all the
entertainments that we give. But he has a high sense of his
persona] dignity, and sometimes takes offense where none
1 intended to be given. This has never happened upon any
circumstance connected with the business of the mission,
he has never entered into the discussions which we have
had among ourselves; but we have seen the manifestations
1814] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 239
of his temper in the occurrences of social intercourse, as well
in our particular circle, as in our relations with the people
of the country. There has, however, never been anything
like a misunderstanding between him and any of us. In
the conduct of our business he has the greatest deference for
the opinions of Mr. Clay. The greatest diversities of senti-
ment and the most animated mutual oppositions have been
between this last gentlemen and your best friend. They
are unquestionably the two members of the mission most
under the influence of that irritability which we impute to
Mr. Goulburn; and perhaps it would be difficult to say which
of them gives way to it the most. Whether Mr. Clay is as
conscious of this infirmity as your friend, whether he has
made it as much the study of his life to acquire a victory
over it, and whether he feels with as much regret after it has
passed every occasion when it proves too strong for him; he
knows better than I do. There is the same dogmatical, over-
bearing manner, the same harshness of look and expression,
and the same forgetfulness of the courtesies of society in both.
An impartial person judging between them I think would say
that one has the strongest, and the other the most cultivated
understanding; that one has the most ardency, and the other
the most experience of mankind; that one has a mind more
gifted by nature, and the other a mind less cankered by
prejudice. Mr. Clay is by ten years the younger man of the
two, and as such has perhaps more claim to indulgence for
irritability. Nothing of this weakness has been shown in
our conferences with the British plenipotentiaries. From
two of them, and particularly from Mr. Goulburn, we have
endured much; but I do not recollect that one expression
has escaped the lips of anyone of us that we would wish to
be recalled.
We dined with them on Tuesday and had a party more
24o THE WRITINGS OF [1814
stiff and reserved than on any former occasion. There was
the same time more studious politeness on the part of
Mr. Goulburn; as if he too was conscious of his trespass upon
decorum in the conference of the preceding day. On Wednes-
day we sent them our note, in which we have made a step
wards the conclusion, to which we have all acceded with
the most extreme reluctance. My belief is that it will be
lost upon the British government, and that our concession
will be of no effect. Our position is now far more painful
that it was when we had the immediate prospect of a rupture
in August. Then we were sure of the support nearly unani-
mous of our own country in rejecting demands the most ex-
travagant and absurd. Now we have the appearance of fight-
ing for feathers; and are sure of disapprobation whether we
yield them, or prolong the war by persisting in our refusal.
From the moment when the British government sunk in
their most obnoxious demands and held out upon these rags
and tatters of contention, I suspected that they were playing
a game of duplicity, and that they struck upon points which
they knew we must reject, merely to have the pretext for
continuing the war, and for putting upon us the blame of its
continuation. Everything that has since happened cor-
roborates this suspicion. Our last note, like all the rest, has
been referred to the British government. We shall have the
answer about the 21st of this month, and I hope it will be
the last occasion for a reference. We are told that there has
been a settlement to the satisfaction of all the great powers
ol the principal objects in discussion at Vienna, and that
the armies on the continent are all to be placed immediately
on the peace establishment. If this arrangement had been
delayed a month longer, it might have made our peace cer-
tain. At this moment it may have an unfavorable effect
upon the issue of our negotiation.
i8i41 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 241
In the meantime we partake of balls, concerts and plays,
as often as we desire. Last Monday evening was one of the
mixed entertainments of concert and ball. At the concert
they performed "Hail Columbia! Air americain a grand
orchestre." So it was announced in the bill of performance.
Would you believe, that all the Hanoverian officers, forming
no small part of the company, received an order, from au-
thority, to leave the hall when that air should be played?
This order was probably given to intimidate the managers,
and prevent the performance of the air; but not producing
that effect, the order was revoked after the concert was be-
gun, and the officers while at the ball received permission
to stay and hear the air, which they did. It is singular
enough that their general l had sent us his cards but ten days
before. . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, 20 December, 18 14.
Our interval of leisure still continues. The British mes-
senger who took our last note to England has not yet re-
turned, but may now be expected from day to day. The
policy of protracting and avoiding a conclusion of any kind
cannot be much longer continued. If, as we have too much
reason to apprehend there has been no sincerity in the late
advances from that government towards conciliation, we
must by the next instructions to their plenipotentiaries have
it ascertained beyond a doubt. In the meantime, whether
the leaky vessels are on their side or on ours, so much is
known of the apparent state of the negotiation that an
opinion has become prevalent in England, France, and Hol-
1 Baron Charles Alten.
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
-4-
land, that peace will be made. There is in the Times news-
paper of last Tuesday, the 13th, an editorial article as violent
as usual against America, arguing plausibly at least that the
British ministry cannot possibly intend to conclude the
peace, but stating that the policies in the City had the day
before been 30 guineas to return 100 if peace should be
signed before the end of the year. Then follows a paragraph
which I give you word for word from the paper:
It was even asserted, though without foundation, that the pre-
liminaries had been already digested, and received the signatures
of the Commissioners on the 3d instant. We have however some
reason to believe that the speculations on this subject are influenced,
in some measure, by secret information, issued for the most unworthy
purposes, from the hotel of the American Legation at Ghent. After
what has been seen of the total want of principle in American states-
men of the Jejfersonian school, the world would not be much astonished
to learn that one of the American negotiators had turned his situation
to a profitable account by speculating both at Paris and London on
the result of the negotiation. Certain it is that letters received yes-
terday from the French capital, relative to the proceedings at
Ghent, contain intimations like those which have been circulated
here on American authority, viz. that the new proposals of the
British will be acceded to, on or before the beginning of the new
year, provided that no better terms can ere then be obtained.
It is impossible for me to pronounce against which of the
American negotiators this insinuation is pointed; but I have
no doubt it was Milligan's return to London that gave rise
to the paragraph, and after what has happened it is not un-
charitable to suspect that he himself has again been spread-
ing rc-ports of the state of the negotiation, and speculating
upon them himself. I do not believe that his principal has
debased himself by sharing in this shameful traffic; but the
i8i41 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 243
charge in the Times probably refers to him. Milligan's
movements have generally been noticed in the newspapers,
and he has always passed under the denomination of Mr.
Bayard's private secretary. I felt so indignant at Milligan's
first expedition to England, and his conduct there, that I
expressed my sentiments about it openly and without re-
serve. Some of his friends thought I had suspected him un-
justly; and after his return here assured me how deeply he
was mortified at the surmises which had gone abroad con-
cerning him. ... I hope he will not show his face here
again; for if he does, I shall be strongly inclined to treat him
according to his deserts. It is to be sure curious enough to
see the Chevalier put down as a statesman of the JefFersonian
school, but that is not more unjust than it is to charge upon
the JefFersonian school the baseness of allying private stock-
jobbing with public office. That is the vice of the Hamii-
tonian school; and the most devoted partisans of the British
in the United States are those who have always been most
deeply stained with that pollution. . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, 23 December, 1814.
. . . The Englishman who so directly put the question to
you at the ball, whether we were likely to make peace, must
have had a small opinion of your discretion, or, what is more
probable, a very small store of his own. Of such inquiries,
however, we have had many — some from total strangers,
who came to our house merely to ask the question, and others
from acquaintances, friends, and even relations. One of the
most amusing inquiries I have had was a very good corre-
spondent of mine, who on our first arrival here wrote me,
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
-44
offering all the important information that he could collect,
and asking of me such information concerning the state of
the negotiation as was not of a nature to be kept secret, point-
ing out to me at the same time a channel of conveyance by
which it could be transmitted to him with the utmost pos-
sible dispatch. Reasonable as this request was, I gave my
correspondent to understand that he must get his public
news concerning this negotiation from the public journals,
and must expect none from me. As he is a man of argument
he argued the point in his reply and intimated, though not
in an offensive manner, that an affectation of mystery upon
subjects which needed no mystery was no mark of diplomatic
skill, and no part of diplomatic duty. I knew the observa-
tion to be just, understood its application, and was diverted
with its ingenuity. But I was inflexible. I insisted upon
having all the benefit of the correspondence on my side; that
he should give me what information he pleased, and when
he should think proper, with the full understanding that he
should receive nothing respecting the negotiation from me
in return. I have now on file a letter from him containing
a number of questions and remarks, to which I shall at my
leisure return an answer as mysterious as ever. He flattered
me at one time with the prospect of seeing him here in person;
but I wrote him, if he had any commercial speculation in
view, I should prefer seeing him at some other time and place.
Notwithstanding this we may still be favored with a visit
from him; but I shall have as little difficulty with himself
as I have had with his correspondence.1
The case is not precisely the same with the inquisitiveness
of a particular friend of ours now at Paris. He has assailed
Smith and me with questions which neither of us can with
propriety answer, and for purposes of his own, for which he
1 George Joy was the inquirer.
i8i4l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 245
ought not to have expected or asked any sort of communica-
tion from us. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than
to render him any service in my power consistent with my
duty, but I am not pleased to find him have so little regard,
or take so little heed to the delicacy of my situation, and to
the duties of his own, and it is not without a struggle that I
have forborne to express to him my full sense of his indiscre-
tion.
The British messenger returned yesterday morning, and
the plenipotentiaries sent us their answer to our last note.1
We are to have a conference with them at our house this day
at noon, and the result of it will ascertain whether they must
refer again to their government, or whether we may at last
discover a prospect of agreeing upon terms of peace. I have
told you candidly our situation since the abandonment by
the British government of all the demands which we could
have no hesitation in rejecting. They have made it impos-
sible (and therein consists all the skill they have shown in
this negotiation) for us to give satisfaction to our country,
either by concluding the peace, or by continuing the war.
I have been since our last note in a state of peculiar anxiety;
for the difference between us and our opponents hinged
upon a point on which I had determined not to sign the
treaty, even if it should be acceded to by my colleagues. I
am not without hopes that the difficulty will be removed
this day; and if it is, that we may at least have the consola-
tion of restoring to our country the blessings of peace.
We shall on this supposition all sign the treaty, and I be-
lieve it will be ratified in America. But you must expect
that we shall all be censured and reproached for it, and none
with more bitterness than your nearest friend. We shall,
1 The instructions, dated December 19, 1814, are in Letters and Despatches of
Lord Castlereagh, X. 221.
h6 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
however have the conscious satisfaction of having sur-
rendered no right of the nation, of having secured every
important interest; of having yielded nothing which could
;sibly have been maintained, and of redeeming our union
m a situation of unparalleled danger and deep distress.
I am also well assured that our enemies, whom peace will
I fear not make sincerely our friends, will give as little satis-
faction to their nation by the treaty, as we shall to ours.
When the terms to which they must at last subscribe are
compared with their demands, they will show a falling off,
which will leave them less to boast of than to excuse. In-
deed, neither party will have cause to exult in the issue, and
after the peace is made the sources of dissension will yet be
so numerous that it will be hardly less difficult to preserve
than it was to obtain. Of the event, however, we must speak
as still extremely doubtful. Mr. Bentzon has returned here
again from London. He left Dover on the 20th and there
saw in the newspapers a proclamation offering a high bounty
both for soldiers and for seamen. Every preparation for
another campaign continues to be made in England, with as
much activity as it could be if there was no negotiation
pending, and with such indications how is it possible to be-
lieve that the British government sincerely intend to con-
clude the peace? My next letter will, I hope, give you in-
formation upon which more reliance can be placed. . . -1
1 The agitation on the property tax increased so far that the ministry feared it
lid be impossible to carry it in Parliament without an engagement to give it up
huuld the war not be renewed. Liverpool informed Castlereagh, December 23,
1S14: "This, as well as other considerations, makes us most anxious to get rid of
American war. I trust our last communication will enable the Commissioners
t 1 bring the negotiation to a close. But even if peace is signed, I shall not be sur-
f Madison endeavours to play us some trick in the ratification of it. . . .
'The disposition to separate on the part of the Eastern States may likewise frighten
Madison; for if he should refuse to ratify the treaty, we must immediately propose
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 247
TO ABIGAIL ADAMS
Ghent, 24th December, 18 14.
My dear and honored Mother:
A treaty of peace between the United States and Great
Britain has this day been signed by the British and American
plenipotentiaries at this place. It is to be dispatched to-
morrow by Mr. Hughes, the Secretary of the American
mission, who is to sail in the Transit from Bordeaux. I have
not time to write a single private letter excepting this; but
I request you to inform my brother that I have received his
letter of the 2nd October, brought by Mr. William Wyer to
France. I was much disappointed in not receiving either by
him, or by the Ajax, the second Dutch vessel arrived from
Boston, any letter from you. I have none later than that of
1st May.
You know doubtless that heretofore the President in-
tended in case of peace to send me to England. If the treaty
should be ratified, I am uncertain whether he will still retain
the same intention or not. I have requested to be recalled
at all events from the mission to Russia. I shall proceed
from this place in a few days to Paris, to be there in readiness
to receive the President's orders, and I shall write immedi-
ately to my wife requesting her to come and join me there.
If we go to England, I beg you to send my sons George and
John there to me. After the peace there can be no want of
good opportunities for them, and I wish them to embark at
the most favorable season for a safe passage. If any other
person should be sent to England, I intend to return as soon
to make a separate peace with them, and we have good reason to believe that they
would not be indisposed to listen to such a proposal." Wellington, Supplementary
Despatches, IX. 495.
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
as possible to America and shall hope before midsummer to
sec- once more my beloved parents.
Of the peace which we have at length concluded it is for
our government, our country and the world to judge, It is
not such as under more propitious circumstances might have
been expected, and to be fairly estimated must be compared
not with our desires, but with what the situation of the
parties and of the world at and during the negotiation made
attainable. We have abandoned no essential right, and if
we have left everything open for future controversy, we
have at least secured to our country the power at her own
option to extinguish the war.1 I remain etc.
TO JOHN ADAMS
Ghent, 26 December, 18 14.
My Dear Sir:
Mr. Hughes, the Secretary to the American mission for
negotiating peace, was dispatched early this morning with
one copy of the treaty signed by the British and American
plenipotentiaries the evening before last. It was executed
1 Liverpool gave to Canning the reasons for desiring peace: the opinion of the
Duke of Wellington that there was no vulnerable point in the United States to
take and to keep; a better frontier for Canada would be found to be impracticable;
the clamor raised over the property tax. "The question, therefore, was whether,
under all these circumstances, it was not better to conclude the peace at the present
lent, before the impatience of the country on the subject had been manifested
ibhc meetings or by motions in Parliament, provided we could conclude it by
the American Commissioners to waive all stipulations whatever on the
F maritime rights, by fulfilling our engagements to the Indians who were
idoned by the treaty of 1783, and by declining to revive in favour of the United
,ny of the commercial advantages which they enjoyed under former treaties.
r as 1 have any means of judging, our decision is generally approved." De-
ccn. . [814. Wellington, Supplementary Despatches, IX. 513.
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 249
in triplicate to provide against the accidents which might
befall any single copy on the passage. Mr. Clay's private
secretary, Mr. Carroll, is to go this day with another copy
to England, there to embark as speedily as possible. We
shall send the third copy by a dispatch vessel which we have
ready at Amsterdam, unless she should be locked in by the
ice, as from the present severity of the weather we have some
reason to apprehend. Mr. Hughes goes to Bordeaux, there
to take passage in the Transit, the vessel in which Mr. Boyd
came to Europe. Mr. Carroll may perhaps go in company
with Mr. Baker,1 the Secretary to the English mission, who
is to be the bearer of the treaty with the English ratifica-
tion. In the hurry of dispatching Mr. Hughes I found it
possible to write only one short private letter to my dear
mother, and I shall probably have only time to write this
one to send by Mr. Carroll. I transmitted, however, by Mr.
Hughes a duplicate of my last letter to you dated 27 Octo-
ber, which I still intreat you to answer, if I am destined to
a longer continuance in Europe, and upon which I ask all the
advice and information which it may be in your power to
bestow. It relates principally to the subject of the greatest
difficulty we have had in the negotiation, and that which of
all others is left in the state the most unsatisfactory to us,
and particularly to me. It has been now for a full month
ascertained that unless new pretensions on the part of Great
Britain were advanced a treaty of peace would be signed;
but it was not until last Thursday that I ceased to doubt
whether it would receive my signature. The British pleni-
potentiaries had declared to us at the outset of the negotia-
tion, that it was not the intention of the British government
to grant to the people of the United States in future the
liberties of fishing, and drying and curing fish, within the
1 Anthony St. John Baker.
,-0 THE WRITINGS OF [18x4
lusive British jurisdiction without an equivalent. There
is, as you must remember, in the third article of the treaty
of 1783 a diversity of expression, by which the general
fisheries on the Banks are acknowledged as our right, but
those fishing privileges within British jurisdiction are termed
liberties. The British government consider the latter as
franchises forfeited ipso facto by the war, and declared they
would not grant them anew without an equivalent. Aware
that by this principle they too had forfeited their right to
navigate the Mississippi, recognized in the same treaty of
1783, they now demanded a new provision to secure it to
them again.
We were instructed not to suffer our right to the fisheries
to be brought into discussion. We had no authority to ad-
mit any discrimination between the first and the last parts
of the third article of the treaty of 1783; no power to offer
or agree to an equivalent either for the rights or the liberties.
I considered both as standing on the same footing, both as
the continuance of franchises always enjoyed, and the dif-
ference in the expressions only as arising from the operation
of our change from the condition of British subjects to that
of a sovereign people upon an object in one part of general
and in the other of special jurisdiction. The special juris-
diction had been that of our own sovereign; by the Revolu-
tion and the treaty of peace it became a foreign, but still
remained a special jurisdiction. By the very same instru-
ment in which we thus acknowledged it as a foreign juris-
diction, we reserved to ourselves, with the full assent of its
(.reign, and without any limitation of time or of events,
the franchise which we had always enjoyed while the juris-
diction had been our own.
It was termed a liberty, because it was a freedom to be en-
joyed within a special jurisdiction; the fisheries on the Banks
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 251
were termed rights, because they were to be enjoyed on the
ocean, the common jurisdiction of all nations; but there was
nothing in the terms themselves, and nothing in the article
or in the treaty, implying an intention or expectation of
either of the contracting parties that one more than the other
should be liable to forfeiture by a subsequent war. On the
maturest deliberation I still hold this argument to be sound,
and it is to my mind the only one by which our claim to the
fisheries within British jurisdiction can be maintained.
But after the declaration made by the British government
it was not to be expected that they would be converted to
this opinion without much discussion, which was forbidden
to us, and the results of which must have been very doubt-
ful upon minds at all times inclined, and at this time most
peculiarly prone, rather to lean upon power than to listen
to reason. We stated the general principles in one of our
notes to the British plenipotentiaries, as the ground upon
which our government deemed no new stipulation necessary
to secure the enjoyment of all our rights and liberties in the
fisheries. They did not answer that part of our note; but
when they came to ask a stipulation for the right of British
subjects to navigate the Mississippi, we objected that by
our construction of the treaty of 1783 it was unnecessary.
If we admitted their construction of that treaty so as to give
them a new right to the navigation, they must give us an
equivalent for it. We offered an article recognizing the con-
tinuance of the rights on both sides; this offer met however
with very great opposition among ourselves, for there were
two x of us against making it, and who thought the naviga-
tion of the Mississippi incomparably more valuable than the
contested part of the fisheries. Not so did the British govern-
ment think; for they, instead of accepting it, offered us an
1 Clay and Russell.
2-2 THE WRITINGS OF [1814
a
to
rticle stipulating to negotiate hereafter for an equivalent
be given by Great Britain for the right of navigating the
Mississippi, and by the United States for the liberties of the
fisheries within British jurisdiction. This was merely to
obtain from us the formal admission that both the rights
were abrogated by the war. To that admission I was de-
termined not to subscribe. The article was withdrawn last
Thursday by the British plenipotentiaries, who accepted our
proposal to say nothing in the treaty about either, and to
it the article by which they had agreed that our boundary
west from the Lake of the Woods should be the forty-ninth
parallel of north latitude. They at the same time referred
again to their original declaration that the fisheries within
British jurisdiction would not hereafter be granted without
an equivalent. It is evident that it must be the subject of
a future negotiation; the only thing possible to be done now
was to reserve our whole claim unimpaired, and with that
I consented to sign the treaty.
We were also obliged to except from the immediate restitu-
tion of territory taken during the war the islands in Pas-
samaquoddy Bay. The British claim them as having been
before the peace of 1783 within the limits of Nova Scotia,
and insisted upon holding them, not as taken during the war
but as of right belonging to them. At first they declared
their right to be too clear even for discussion; but they finally
agreed to refer to commissioners and to a friendly sovereign
the title to them, and even to the island of Grand Manan in
the Bay of Fundy, which has been since 1724 in their posses-
sion. We persisted in demanding that the Passamaquoddy
I lands should be included in the general restoration, until
they manifested a determination to break ofi" rather than
yield the point. Their inflexibility upon two objects ex-
elusively interesting to the state of Massachusetts is a mel-
i8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 253
ancholy comment upon that policy by which Massachusetts
has arrayed herself against the government of the Union.
Had Massachusetts been true to herself and to the Union,
Great Britain would not have dared to hinge the question
of peace or war upon Moose Island, or upon the privileges
of Massachusetts fishermen. As a citizen of Massachusetts
I felt it to be most peculiarly my duty not to abandon any
one of her rights, and I would have refused to sign the treaty
had any of them been abandoned. But it was imposssible to
force a stipulation in favor of the fisheries; and for a tem-
porary possession of Moose Island, merely until it should be
ascertained whether it belongs to her or not, we could not
think of continuing the war. . . .x I have great satisfaction
in saying that our harmony has been as great and constant
as perhaps ever existed between five persons employed to-
gether upon so important a trust. Upon almost all the im-
portant questions we have been unanimous. I am etc.
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, 27 December, 18 14.
On Saturday last, the sixth of December, the Emperor
Alexander's birthday, a treaty of peace and amity was
signed by the British and American plenipotentiaries in
this city. I had written you the day before that there was
to be a conference at 12 o'clock. It lasted three hours,
and the result of it was an agreement to meet the next day
at the Chartreux, the house where the British plenipoten-
1 This letter was shown by John Adams to James Lloyd, who had been chosen
to the United States Senate in succession to Adams, and he prepared an elaborate
statement on the fisheries question. It is printed in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings,
XLV. 380.
z:[ THE WRITINGS OF [1814
tiaries reside, for the purpose of signing the treaty. This
was accordingly done at 6 o'clock in the evening. Mr. Baker,
the secretary to the British mission, had a carriage in the
y-ard ready to start for London the moment after the con-
clusion. He went at 7 o'clock the same evening for Ostend,
where there was a vessel in readiness to sail the moment
he should arrive there. We have reason to suppose he may
have reached London yesterday morning, and that the news
of the peace may have been announced in the Courier of
last evening. In order to give Mr. Baker the opportunity
of carrying to his government the first intelligence of the
event, we agreed with the British plenipotentiaries that it
should not be divulged here until the next day at noon. The
secret was kept, I believe, as faithfully as any such secret
can be; but it happened that Mr. Bentzon, who as I have
written you had returned to this place a few days before
from London, happened accidentally to have been invited
to dine with us. Our usual dining hour is four o'clock, but
it was near seven when we returned from the conference,
where he knew we had been. He was watchful of every word
said at dinner, and loitered about our separate apartments
until 10 o'clock. I do not think he obtained positive knowl-
edge of the fact, but he ascertained enough to satisfy him-
self, and he went off before midnight. Baker had the start
of him about four hours. The conclusion of the treaty was
officially communicated by the British plenipotentiaries to
the Intendant on Christmas day, the day of all the year most
congenial to the proclamation of peace on earth. We re-
ceived his congratulations the same evening at a large party
embled according to the usage of the country at his house,
and an invitation to dine with him on Wednesday, to cele-
brate the event. We had, however, already engaged the
British plenipotentiaries to dine with us on that day.
l8i4] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 255
Mr. Hughes left us at four o'clock yesterday morning,
and Mr. Carroll at ten last evening. Three copies of the
treaty were executed on each side, to guard against any
accident which may befall any single copy on the passage.
Mr. Baker is to go out immediately to America with the
English ratification. Mr. Hughes goes to Bordeaux, there
to embark in the Transit, and takes one copy of the treaty.
Mr. Carroll goes to England to embark, if it should be agree-
able to the British government, in the same vessel with
Mr. Baker. If not, by any other opportunity that he can
obtain. He has the second copy of the treaty. We intended
to have sent the third copy by the Herald, but as in all
probability she is frozen up at Amsterdam, we shall be ob-
liged to wait for some other occasion. My colleagues all
intend to visit Paris, and all, excepting Mr. Russell, London.
Mr. Gallatin proposes likewise to go to Geneva. The Nep-
tune is to be ordered to Plymouth or Falmouth, and they
expect to sail about the first of April, which may very pos-
sibly lengthen out to the first of May.
In that interval there will be time to learn from the United
States whether the treaty will be ratified, and whether our
government will confer any new appointment in Europe
upon them, or either of them. There will be at the least
missions of London and St. Petersburg to be filled. In my
letter to you of the 13 th of the month I hinted to you the
course that I should take, in case the peace should be made.
I have accordingly written to the Secretary of State, that
I shall go to Paris, and there wait for the President's orders.
Whether he retains the intention of sending me to England
or not, I have definitely requested to be recalled from the
Russian mission. If the peace should not be ratified in
America, we shall have, I doubt not, ample time to return
home in the Neptune. If ratified, and we do not go to Eng-
256
THE WRITINGS OF [1814
land, there can be no scarcity of opportunities for our return
to the United States either from France or England. I
therefore now write you to break up altogether our estab-
lishment at St. Petersburg . . . and to come with Charles
to me at Paris, where I shall be impatiently waiting for you.
I calculate upon your receiving this letter about the twen-
tieth of January, and I suppose you will not be able to make
all the necessary arrangements to leave St. Petersburg
sooner than the middle of February. If the season should
-till be too severe, I wish you to wait until it shall be milder.
Take care to engage a good man, and woman servant to
come with you. Mr. Harris will procure for you an order for
courier horses, and you will travel at your leisure. You will
find a very tolerable lodging for the night at any of the post-
houses, and Mr. Gallatin and Mr. Bayard from their own
experience recommend most earnestly that you travel in no
other carriage than a kibitka. . . .
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, 30 December, 18 14.
. . . The peace will doubtless enable you to part with
mutual looks and feelings of kindness from our English
friends and acquaintances. If there has been no sympathy
during the war between their joys and sorrows and ours,
there will, it is hoped, henceforth be no opposition between
them. Indeed, although the peace is not what I should have
hed, and although it may acquire no credit in our country
who made it, I consider the day on which I signed
1 he happiest of my life; because it was the day on which
1 had my share in restoring peace to the world. You know
from my letters that during the last ten days previous to
1814J JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 257
the last note which we received from the British plenipoten-
tiaries, I had the painful prospect of a treaty's being con-
cluded without my signature. A stipulation was proposed
to us, to which I had determined not to subscribe. My col-
leagues would ultimately have admitted it, rather than break
off the negotiation. It was at last withdrawn by the British
government, and although it left the subject open for a
dangerous future controversy, that was impossible for me
to prevent. The relief to my mind when the proposed article
was withdrawn, was inexpressible. And now, although I
am well aware that there are things in the treaty which will
give great dissatisfaction in America, and most particularly
to my native state of Massachusetts, yet I have the comfort
of reflecting that no one right of any sort has been aban-
doned; and that no reasonable man can hesitate a moment
in saying that between such a peace, and the continuance
of the war for another year, it was impossible to make a
question. The conditions of the treaty will not be published
in Europe until its return from America, ratified or rejected;
for our government have it at their option to take or to re-
fuse it; and notwithstanding all its faults I confidently ex-
pect it will be ratified. I have given to Mr. Harris a sum-
mary of its principal terms, and have authorised him to
communicate them in confidence to the Russian govern-
ment. He is also at liberty to communicate them to you;
and you may give him and others whom you please the in-
formation, that the hostilities are to cease as soon as possible
after the ratification in America. All captures at sea, after
certain dates, according to the distances, are to be restored —
twelve days after the ratifications, on the coast of North
America; thirty days, in the British and Irish Channels;
forty days, in the North Seas and the Baltic; and one hun-
dred and twenty days in the remotest parts of the world.
2.8 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
We hope the American ratification will be given in February,
, ,r the beginning of March. The American flag will therefore
be one of the first welcomed at Cronstadt and Archangel the
ensuing season, and our vessels that have been there war-
bound for nearly three years may sail again for their homes
with the first favorable breezes and open waters of the ap-
proaching year. . . -1
TO JAMES A. BAYARD, HENRY CLAY AND
JONATHAN RUSSELL
Ghent, 2 January, 1815.
Gentlemen:
I have received the letter which you did me the honor to
address to me on the 30th ultimo and beg leave to state to
you what I understood to have passed relative to the books,
maps, other articles and papers, belonging to the mission
at their meeting of that day.
I had expressed it as my opinion that at the termination
of the mission the custody of these effects, particularly of the
papers, would devolve upon me, subject to the orders of our
government. The principle upon which the opinion is
founded is the usage in similar cases, supported by the prece-
dent in the case of the prior joint mission. Under that pre-
cedent Mr. Gallatin now holds the whole original papers of
communications from the Russian government, and Mr.
Bayard the full powers to that mission to treat of peace and
commerce with Great Britain which he received from Mr.
( Sallatin. It is true that the principle was then neither con-
ted nor discussed.
American plenipotentiaries broke up housekeeping this day, and Gallatin,
Bayard and Adams returned to the Hotel des Pays-Bas.
,8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 259
Mr. Clay, having on a preceding day and at the meeting
of the 20th ultimo expressed an opinion that the papers of
the present mission ought to be transmitted to the Depart-
ment of State, and a wish to have them with him for his
personal convenience in the Neptune, the subject was dis-
cussed, a variety of opinions were given, but I did not under-
stand that any vote was taken or any resolution was adopted.
I expressed my willingness to deliver all the papers in my
possession which should be specified to me by a majority of
the mission to any person to be named by them with authority
to give me a receipt for them, and on receiving from him
such receipt. I conceived this to be indispensable to my own
justification for putting the papers permanently out of my
hands. My motive for asking that the papers should be
specified was that there appeared to me a manifest impropri-
ety that some of them, particularly the full powers and
instructions received from the Department of State, should
be sent back to that Department, and I had thought that
upon the discussion of the 30th ultimo this had been gener-
ally admitted. My motive for asking that the person to
whom I should deliver the papers should be named was, that
many of them being original papers of great importance I
could not consistently take upon myself to decide whom the
majority of the mission would consider as such.
I understood Mr. Clay to have said at the meeting of the
30th ultimo that he would draw up such a requisition to me,
but I expected that the draft to be made by him would, like
every other paper hitherto drawn up by any one member of
the mission, be submitted to the consideration of all the
members before it would be definitely settled, and that I
should have an opportunity of stating my objections to the
whole or to any part of it. Your letter contains a request
totally different from that which I had understood Mr. Clay
26o THE WRITINGS OF [1815
to promise that he would draw up, inasmuch as that was to
specify both the person to whom I should deliver the papers
and the papers to be delivered, and this specifies neither the
one nor the other, but under the vague and general terms of
'•other persons" leaves me doubtful whether it was your
intention to include in your request all the papers without
exception, or to leave me to the exercise of my own discre-
tion in making the exceptions.
You will perceive, gentlemen, that I cannot consider the
paper signed by you and presented to me by Mr. Clay as the
act of a majority of the mission, since it was signed without
consultation with the whole mission upon its contents, al-
though all the members of the mission were here and might
have been consulted. I deem this circumstance so important
in point of principle that I have thought it my duty to
answer your letter in writing. My objections to a compli-
ance with your request itself I propose to state at a meeting
• >f the members of the mission remaining here. In the mean-
time I pray you to be assured that, with a full sense of the
deference due from me to your opinions, and with an earnest
desire to comply as far as the obligations of my duty will
permit with the wishes of you all and of every one of you,1
I am etc.
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, Hotel des Pays-Bas, 3 January, 1815.
. . . You perceive that I dwell with delight upon the
contemplation of the peace; not that the treaty has been
satisfactory to me, or that I flatter myself it will be satis-
factory t< > my country. For the justification of the American
negotiators, the present relative situation of the two parties
1 Sec Adams, Mtmoirs, January 6, 1815.
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 261
to the war, and the state in which the European pacifica-
tion had left the world, must be duly weighed. We have
obtained nothing but peace, and we have made great sacri-
fices to obtain it. But our honor remains unsullied; our ter-
ritory remains entire. The peace in word and in deed has
been made upon terms of perfect reciprocity, and we have
surrendered no one right or pretension of our country. This
is the fair side of the treaty. Its darkest shade is that it has
settled no one subject of dispute between the two nations.
It has left open, not only all the controversies which had
produced the war; but others not less important which have
arisen from the war itself. The treaty would more properly
be called an unlimited armistice than a peace, and the day
we agreed to sign it, I told my colleagues that it would im-
mortalize the negotiators on both sides, as a masterpiece of
diplomacy, by the address with which it avoided the adjust-
ment of any one dispute that had ever existed between the
parties. Certain it is, that no other than such a peace could
have been made.
We have felt some curiosity to know how the peace would
be received in England. Mr. Baker arrived, as we had ex-
pected, on Monday the 26th, about two in the afternoon,
at London. But owing to the accident which had happened
to him on the way between this place and Ostend, he was
not the first to announce the news. The stock jobbers (and
probably Bentzon) were before him. There had been a re-
port on Saturday that the peace was signed; but on Monday
about noon it was circulated as a certainty. The Courier of
that day in one paragraph mentioned it, and adds that the
business done upon the Stock Exchange was immense.
The funds rose nearly one per cent. But the government
had no information of the event. Then in a second edition,
dated 4 o'clock, is another paragraph stating by authority
262
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
from government that the peace had been signed on Saturday
the 24th. We have not yet seen any Courier or Chronicle
of a later date, but Mr. Goulburn was kind enough to bring
me yesterday the Times down to Friday last, the 30th. It
has abated none of its virulence against America. In an-
nouncing on the 27th the "fatal intelligence" of the treaty,
it calls upon the nation to rise unanimously and address the
Regent against its ratification. It continues every day to
Friday pouring forth its lamentations and its execrations;
and when despairing of the perfidy that it had recommended,
of a refusal to ratify, still resting upon a savage hope that
before the ratification can take place in America, the British
will take care to inflict some signal stroke of vengeance to
redeem their reputation. It states that after the first day
of the peace's being known, there was a depression instead
of a rise of the funds; and attributes it to an universal
belief that the state of affairs at Vienna rendered the
prospect of a new European war inevitable, as nothing
else could possibly have induced the cabinet to conclude
such a peace. This reasoning is probably not altogether
unfounded. . . .
We broke up our establishment at the Hotel Lovendeghem,
Rue des Champs, last Friday. . . . Yesterday Lord Gam-
bier and Dr. Adams left the city for London. We dined with
neral Alten and a large party of English and Hanoverian
officers. In the evening we went to the concert and redoute
paree. It was excessively crowded and the music of the
concert was adapted to the celebration of the peace. At
one end of the hall there was a transparent inscription:
Harmonie / entre Albion et Columbia / Paix de Gand /
conclue XXIV Decembre. God save the King and Hail
Columbia were part of the performances. The hall was
extremely crowded with company, and the notes of peace
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 263
gave a double delight to the pleasures of the song and the
dance. . . .
The anecdote about Decatur is excellent; but I am not
sure that it was not too severe upon Carden. But the trick
the English actors played upon us, and that I told you of,
was a match for it — taking our money, asking our patronage,
and then singing,
O Lord our God arise
Scatter his enemies
before our faces. . . .
I presume you will be presented to the Empress mother
(and to the Empress if she returns), but let it only be for an
absence to join me — not a final leave, because I am not yet
recalled. If you have an opportunity at the audience, tell
their Majesties that I expect to be recalled, and if I should
be, how infinitely I shall regret not having it in my power to
take leave of them in person, and how ineffaceable the re-
membrance I shall ever retain of their gracious condescen-
sion to us, while at their court.
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, 6 January, 181 5.
There is a newsboy's new year's address, in vulgar dog-
gerel Flemish verse, circulating with many others, but which
it seems some of the printers declined publishing. It alludes
to the bon mot of the Prince de Ligne about the Congress at
Vienna "Le Congres danse, mais il ne marche pas," and then
recommends to the sovereigns and great ministers assembled
at the Austrian capital to turn their eyes towards Ghent,
and take a lesson from what has been doing here. That
264 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
Lord Gambier and Gallatin were never seen to valse; that
Goulburn was never found in a country-dance; that the
British and American ambassadors dined at what hour they
pleased; but they worked after dinner, and one morning,
when nobody expected it, lo, it was found they had made a
treaty, and all was settled. Whether the Congress at Vienna
have wasted any of their time upon carousels, and sledging
parties, and boar-hunting, I am not sufficiently informed to
pronounce; but although we have been sober enough in our
diversions; it is doing us too much honor to compliment us
upon the dispatch with which we have executed our business.
If it has taken us six months to make a treaty, merely put-
ting an end to the war between Britain and America, with-
out settling one point of dispute, ten years would by the rule
of proportion be a short term for the monarchs and states-
men at Vienna to balance the future destinies of Europe;
and after all it is probably from the thorns of their dissen-
sions that we have plucked the rose of peace. . . -1
TO LEVETT HARRIS
Ghent, 13 January, 1815.
Dear Sir:
The irregularities in the transmission of letters between
this place and St. Petersburg have been so great and so con-
tinual that I have ceased altogether inquiring into the causes
1 >f them, but I have within these two days had four new evi-
dences of them. The day before yesterday I received at
once your two letters of 2/14 and of 9/21 ultimo, and yester-
ay morning two letters from Mrs. Adams dated the 15th
and 16th. My last to you was of 27 December announcing
1 Bayard and Clay left Ghent early on the morning of January 7.
l8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 265
the signature of the peace, but as it was already known at
London you will probably receive the news from thence
sooner than by my letters. Whatever the coolness or re-
serve between the representatives of the United States and
Great Britain at St. Petersburg may have been while the
war between their two countries was raging, I hope and
trust it will disappear upon the return of peace. The Eng-
lish papers state that the Duke of Wellington, who was in-
formed of the signature of the treaty by a courier from the
British plenipotentiaries here, immediately wrote a note to
Mr. Crawford informing him of the event and called upon
him in person the next morning to congratulate him upon
it. An example of so much courteousness and liberality
(for the authenticity of which I have however as yet no
other than newspaper authority) ought to be a precedent
for the diplomatic officers of both nations throughout the
world, and I dare say the public servants of the United
States will everywhere manifest the pleasure which they feel
at the restoration of the pacific relations between the two
countries by every act of civility towards the British lega-
tions which may be proper.
I have not entered into any correspondence with Count
Nesselrode since I have been here, because the regular chan-
nel of communication between the United States and Russia
was through you and the Imperial Department of Foreign
Affairs. Count Nesselrode had never been in any manner
intimated to me as a Minister with whom I was authorized
to communicate, or who was authorized to answer me if I
had written to him upon subjects of a public nature. But
it was not on my part a mere scruple of etiquette. I was
fully satisfied that if it had been the pleasure of the Emperor
to take an interest, either in the progress of the negotiation
which was committed to us, or in the subject which was
266 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
presented to his consideration in your note to Mr. Weyde-
meyer, such an intimation would have been given to me,
tit her directly from Count Nesselrode, or through you from
Mr. Weydemeyer. It never was the intention of our govern-
ment, and I will now say to you in confidence, it was ex-
pressly contrary to my instructions to press upon the Em-
peror's friendly disposition towards the United States, or to
make his friendship in any manner burdensome to himself.
Our country was grateful to the Emperor for what he had
done, for his offer of mediation, for the candor with which
he rejected the false impressions that were attempted to be
made upon him by representing us as the allies or the instru-
ments of Napoleon, for the equity of which he judged of our
conduct and our motives. It was no part of our policy to
trouble him with importunity. And although at one period
of our negotiation it was thought expedient that I should
make a direct communication to Count Nesselrode, and I
had prepared one accordingly, yet upon more mature de-
liberation the idea was abandoned and at this moment I
cannot but feel some satisfaction that our business was con-
ducted to its conclusion without having given so much as a
hint of our existence to any one of the sovereigns or ministers
of state assembled at Vienna.1
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
January 10, 1815.
Party violence, Hughes writes, had increased in Congress,
and was increasing; and the debates, particularly among the
young members, often became personal. I cannot easily
imagine anything more violent than a speech of an old ac-
1 See Adams, Memoirs, September 5-7, 1814.
l8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 267
quaintance of yours, Mr. Cyrus King,1 which the English
newspapers have republished, and which has given great
satisfaction to the enemies of America. I hope that with
the blessing of Providence the peace will contribute to arrest
the New England confederation in its absurd and senseless
career; but I apprehend the root of the evil lies too deep to
be eradicated even by the peace. It is in vulgar and popular
prejudice prevailing in each part of the Union against each
other; and in the workings of individual ambition graduated
upon a small scale, incapable of rising to distinction upon
the theatre of the whole union, and aspiring to the sway of
a fragment of it.
January 13, 1815.
Mr. Gallatin did not leave this city till yesterday morn-
ing. He goes to spend a month at Geneva, and then return
to Paris. His son, James, says that he would be pleased
with the mission to Russia, but important as that is likely
to be, I should be glad to see him in some place where he
would render still more useful service to the public. With-
out disparagement to any other of my late or present col-
leagues I consider him as having contributed the largest and
most important share to the conclusion of the peace, and
there has been a more constant concurrence of opinion be-
tween him and me upon every point of our deliberations,
than perhaps between any two other members of the mis-
sion.
January 17, 1815.
Since we quitted the Hotel Lovendeghem our two land-
lords Lannuier and Deusbon have been selling at public
auction our furniture. That operation of itself would not
have taken much time, nor have produced much money;
1 Cyrus King (1772-1817). His speech, delivered December 3, 1814, is in the
Annals 0} Congress, 13th Cong., III. 720.
i68 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
but under the name of effects having belonged to us they
have emptied all the upholsterers' shops in the city. The
sale has lasted, I believe, a week or ten days; and the good
people of the place consider the Congress of Ghent as an
epoch of so much importance in the history of their city,
that they have given extravagant prices for some of our
relics. I am told that an old inkstand, which was used at
the conference, was sold for thirty francs, though it was not
worth as many sous. Even the furniture from the British
hotel was sold at our house, for the sake of putting it in favor.
The worst part of the joke was that they put off quantities
of bad wine, as if it had been ours. We did not leave a bottle
for sale.
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, 20 January, 181 5.
I received yesterday morning yours of 27 December, and
readily excuse the omission of a letter on the birthday in the
satisfaction of reflecting that you were at that time partak-
ing in the celebration of a day memorable in the annals of
Russia, as it will henceforth be memorable in those of our
country, and particularly memorable in the days of my life.
It is yet for my country to judge how far it is to be considered
as a day of joy or of sorrow. I do not apprehend that it, the
treaty signed on that day, will be rejected; but that it will
be as unpopular in America as it is said to be in England is
not improbable, and such is the operation of party spirit that
it will be most unpopular in my own state of Massachusetts,
where it was most earnestly desired and where the war which
I 1 terminate is the most obnoxious. I wrote you more
than once before the signature that the only remaining ob-
stacles to the conclusion were objects of little value in them-
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 269
selves, and in which the people of Massachusetts alone had
an interest. They are three small islands at the eastern ex-
tremity of the United States, the title to which has been in
dispute for several years between Massachusetts and the
British province of Nova Scotia; and a liberty to fish on the
coast of the British provinces, and to dry and cure fish upon
their desert shores. You have seen in the published papers
that at the outset of the negotiation the British plenipoten-
tiaries told us that the islands in question were as clearly
their town as Northamptonshire, and that their right to
them was not even a subject of discussion. They had how-
ever been several years prior to the war in our possession,
had been recognized as ours by Great Britain herself, in a
convention concluded between Lord Hawkesbury and
Air. King in 1803, and had only been taken by an expedition
from Halifax this summer. After the British plenipoten-
tiaries had demanded of us about one-third part of the ter-
ritory of the United States, under the name of an Indian
boundary, and had been flatly refused, they fell back upon
a demand to keep all that they had taken, that is the eastern
countries of Massachusetts to Penobscot River. When
beaten off from that ground they made a forlorn hope of
those three miserable islands, the whole territory of which
is not equal to the ground covered by the city of St. Peters-
burg, and the whole population of which does not amount to
two hundred souls. Small and insignificant as the object
was, you will easily conceive, however, that for me, the only
native citizen of Massachusetts in the mission, it was im-
possible to sign a treaty renouncing the right of the state to
them. It was finally agreed that all the questions of dis-
puted territory should be referred to commissioners to be
appointed by both parties, and, if they cannot agree, to the
decision of some friendly sovereign or state. Even then an
2?0 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
attempt was made by the manner in which the article was
drawn up to exclude those islands from that reference. They
were at last formally and expressly included in the reference,
but nothing could prevail upon the British government to
restore the possession of them, together with all other terri-
tory taken, until the decision should take place upon the
title. The question left for us was, should we continue the
war, rather than leave the British in possession of these three
disputed islands, until it should be decided whether they
belonged to them or to us. We concluded not to break off
upon that point, and assented to an exception which leaves
the intermediate possession to them, unless we should have
retaken them before the ratification of the treaty. This sacri-
fice was a painful one to me, and I yielded to it with great
reluctance.
The fishing right stood upon a different foundation. It
had been secured to us by a stipulation in the treaty of 1783.
The British plenipotentiaries gave us notice, that Great
Britain would not renew the stipulation without an equiva-
lent. But there was also a stipulation in the treaty of 1783,
that the British should enjoy the free navigation of the
Mississippi River, a right of which the British plenipoten-
tiaries demanded the renewal. We had no equivalent to
give for the fishing liberty, and our instructions forbade us
to make it a subject of discussion. We declared to the
British plenipotentiaries that our fishing rights and liberties
needed no new stipulation. We did not consider them as
abrogated by the war, and that they by the same reason
needed no stipulation for the navigation of the Mississippi.
I i, however, they chose to have one they must give an equiva-
lent for it. We would consent either to a stipulation con-
firming the liberties on both sides, or to say nothing in the
trrat>- about either. They then proposed to us an article,
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 271
that the parties agreed to negotiate hereafter for an equiva-
lent, to be given by Great Britain for the navigation of the
Mississippi, and by the United States for the fishing liberties.
The only effect of this article would have been the acknowl-
edgment by both sides that both the rights were abrogated,
an acknowledgment to which I had fully determined not
to subscribe. We rejected it, and the last reference of the
British plenipotentiaries to their government was to ascer-
tain whether they should sign the treaty without that arti-
cle. It was omitted, but with a reference by them to their
former declaration that the liberties of the fisheries within
their exclusive jurisdiction would not in future be granted
without an equivalent. This is the worst feature of the
peace, because it leaves the right asserted on one side and
denied on the other; so that the moment the fishermen resort
again to the fishing grounds within the British jurisdiction
they are liable to be forcibly driven from them, and there
is a new cause of war. This also is a privilege in which the
people of Massachusetts alone have any interest; they have
therefore more reason than any other part of the Union to
be dissatisfied with the peace, and as a native of the State
they have a right to hold me more severely responsible for
it than any of my colleagues. On the other hand they had
no particular interest in the Indian article. That bears ex-
clusively upon the western and southern states. Its most
pernicious feature is the consent that Great Britain should
be allowed to treat for them. As however, it only replaced
them in the condition they were in before the war; and as
the relative strength both of English and of Indians com-
pared with the United States must diminish and dwindle to
nothing in time of peace, I hope that article will have no
important evil consequence, and I have some reason to be-
lieve our acceptance of it has not been disapproved. . . .
272 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Ghent, 24 January, 1815.
... A few days before Messrs. Bayard, Clay and Galla-
tin left this city, Mr. Van Huffel, a painter, and president
of the Societe des Beaux Arts, took a fancy to have likenesses
of the American ministers, in miniature drawn with a black
lead pencil. Those gentlemen all sat to him each an hour
or two, and after their departure I went to his house for the
same purpose.1 But after he had begun with his pencil he
persuaded himself, and by dint of importunity persuaded me
to let him put the figure upon canvas instead of paper; and
in oil colors, instead of black lead. It was also understood
that the picture was to be not for him, but for me; that is to
say, if you think it worth your acceptance for you. The
likeness is good, and the picture not a bad one. I leave it
here to be finished. . . .
If the rumors from Vienna are well founded, neither the
airs of Henri Quatre nor of God save the King will be long
favorites at the imperial palace of St. Petersburg. They are
sometimes played here at the theatre, at the concerts and
adoutcs; but neither of them is half so popular as Hail
Columbia. You would not easily imagine how this last has
become in this city the vaudeville of the day. Soon after
<>ur acquaintance with the inhabitants had become con-
lerably extensive, and some of our young men had mani-
fested that they had no partiality for British tunes, the
musicians inquired whether we had not some American
national air? Oh, yes! there was Hail Columbia! Had any
"t us got it noted? No. Could anybody sing or play it?
I of these sketches, being portraits of Adams, Gallatin, Bayard, Clay and
i I i.-lic, arc in the possession of Mr. Christopher H. Manley, of Baltimore.
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 273
This was an embarrassing question. But Peter, Mr. Gal-
latin's black man, could whistle it, and whistle it he did; and
one of the musicians of the city noted it down from Peter's
whistling; and Hughes then remembered that he could scrape
it, tant bien que mal, upon the fiddle, and he could sing verses
of it when he was alone. And from those elements the tune
was made out, and partitioned, and announced as fair na-
tional des Americains a grand orchestre, and now it is every-
where played as a counterpart to God save the King. The
day we dined at the Intendant's after the peace, his daughter-
in-law, Madame d'Hane told Mr. Goulburn that she liked
Hail Columbia better than God save the King, which she
thought "trop langoureux" — Hail Columbia was "plus gai"
Mr. Goulburn said to her "cela prouve seulement, Madame,
que vous n> etes pas anglaise" I was sitting next to Madame
d'Hane when this dialogue between her and Mr. Goulburn
took place across the table. She is a young and beautiful
woman; but to answer your question, she is not the fair lady
who according to your cards takes up so much of my atten-
tion. That fair lady is younger still, and unmarried. I refer
you for her name to my letter of the 6th inst.,1 where you
will find that I have not been insensible to the necessity of a
reputation for gallantry to the diplomatic character. You
must not be jealous of my Muse, and as for all the rest of the
fair sex of Ghent, your friend, Mr. Gallatin, used to answer
them by the assurance that all my affections absent from
home were platonic. He one day told me this himself; and
I recommended it to him for the future, to pay his court to
the ladies for himself, and to leave them, if they had the
curiosity to know my character, to find it out in their own
way. . . .
1 Marianne, the twelve-year-old daughter of Mr. Meulemeester. See Adams,
Memoirs, January 4, 1815.
,74 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
TO LOUISA CATHERINE ADAMS
Bruxelles, Hotel de Flandre, 27 January, 1815.
Me void, at length out of Ghent,1 though I believe if it
had not been for the shame of fixing so many times a day
for departure, and still postponing the act, I should have
stayed there a fortnight longer. The natural philosophers
say that inertness is one of the properties of matter by which
they understand the aptitude of remaining in whatever
situation it is, whether in motion or at rest. Thus they af-
firm that if a house or a tree were once put in motion, they
would continue to move forever, if they were not stopped
by some external impediment, and that if anything ever so
addicted to motion (Mrs. 's tongue for instance) were
once set to rest, it would be forever immoveable, unless some
external impulse should again give it a start. Whether I
have more of matter in my composition than my neighbors,
I shall not inquire; but of that inertness which when once
at rest requires an external impulse to be put in motion, I
certainly have my full share. You know how long I have
lived in Russia, almost without passing beyond the bounds
of St. Petersburg, and now I have been upwards of seven
months at Ghent, without making an excursion of a single
day to visit any of the neighboring cities. It has been to me
one of the labors of Hercules to take my departure, sixteen
days after the time that I had fixed; and now that I am safely
1 at Bruxelles, it is highly probable that the five days
I had allotted to this place will be extended to ten or fifteen.
The attractions of Paris are not an impulsion strong enough
cin motion. . . .
My letters have informed you time after time of the hos-
1 He left that city on the morning of January 26, and arrived at Paris, February 4.
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 275
pitable, kind and even affectionate treatment that we all ex-
perienced from the inhabitants of Ghent. It was continued
to the last, and I left the place with such recollections as I
never carried from any other spot in Europe. The interest
which the people took in our cause was the source of their
attentions to us, and it was the more sensibly felt by me
because I had come from and travelled through countries
where a very different sentiment prevailed. You have writ-
ten me, and Mr. Harris writes the same, that our cause has
of late had many friends likewise in Russia; but if there had
been any before, they had judged it most prudent to keep
the secret confined to their own breasts, while the partisans
of our adversary proclaimed their partiality on the house
tops.1 Of Sweden, which I had seen in its happier and better
days, I would willingly lose the memory of having seen it
again. The national character has undergone a revolution
more disgusting than that of its government. A close alli-
ance with Russia, a French soldier of fortune supplanting
the children of Gustavus Vasa, as hereditary successor to
the throne, and the lust of conquest corroding every heart
for the acquisition of Norway, had so totally corrupted,
perverted and debased every natural Swedish sentiment that
1 "The sensation produced here by the new order of things is, as you may sup-
pose, great indeed. In the court circle the peace is regretted as being thought pre-
mature on our part. It seems wished that we had continued to occupy the enemy
another year and to occasion to him a reduction of his influence in Europe. The
events at Vienna, known to us as they are but by rumor, sufficiently however
evince an irritation which the conduct of Great Britain in the Congress there has
excited in more than one great power; and the engines of the British party are at
work here to effect changes in the commercial system better adapted to British in-
terests. . . The Russian traders, whose interests have suffered so much from
the war, have, many of them, brought me their felicitations in person; and in spite
of the captious remarks in the Times newspaper of the 27 December, I perceive a
feeling of satisfaction very apparent with the English traders here." Leveit Harris
to John Quincy Adams, 7/19 January, 1815. Ms.
2?6 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
there was no room left for any just or generous feeling in
favor of America. There was no such feeling to be seen;
but short as my stay in that country was, I saw so much of
the contrary, of the vilest subserviency to our enemy, that
I could only ask myself with astonishment, is this the same
people whom I saw in 1782— brave, generous, and warm-
hearted, like the king who then reigned over them? Is it
the mildewed ear that has spread the blast over a whole
nation? No, Sweden is not in its natural state; nor do I be-
lieve the present order of things there calculated to be per-
manent. It is but a breed of barren metal from the iron
crown of Bonaparte, and on the fall of that from his brow
was struck with the rust under which it will moulder into
ashes. . . .
COMMISSION
By JAMES MADISON,— President of the United States of
America,
To John Q. Adams — Greeting:
Reposing especial Trust and Confidence in your Integrity,
Prudence and Ability, I have nominated and by and with the
advice and consent of the Senate appointed you the said John Q.
Adams, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of
the United States of America at the Court of His Royal Highness
the Prince Regent of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and
Ireland; authorizing you hereby to do and perform all such mat-
ters and things as to the said place or office do appertain or as may
be duly given you in charge hereafter and the said office to Hold
ami exercise during the pleasure of the President of the United
States for the time being.
In Testimony Whereof, I have caused the seal of the United
ite8 to be hereunto affixed.
( iivKN under my hand at the City of Washington the Twenty
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 277
Eighth day of February in the year of our Lord one thousand Eight
hundred and Fifteen, and of the Independence of the United States
the Thirty Ninth.
James Madison.
By the President,
Jas. Monroe, Secretary of State.
TO ABIGAIL ADAMS
Paris, 21 February, 181 5.
My Dear Mother:
■ ••••••
Three months more would have completed thirty years
since I last saw the city of Paris. It was in May, 1785, that
I left your house at Auteuil to go and embark at L'Orient
for New York. Thirty years is the period upon the average
of one generation of the human race. When I departed from
the city, its streets, its public walks, its squares, its theatres,
swarmed with multitudes of human beings as they do now.
And in walking through the streets now they present so
nearly the same aspect as they did then, this Rue de Riche-
lieu, where I now lodge, looks so exactly like the Rue de
Richelieu where I first alighted with my father in April, 1778,
thirty-seven years ago, that my imagination can scarcely
realize the fact, that of its inhabitants certainly not one in
a hundred, probably not one in a thousand, is the same.
That very Hotel de Valois, where my father had his lodg-
ings, still exists as a public hotel, and a few days ago I had
the curiosity to go and look at the apartments which he
then had. That house however is no longer what it was,
and the chambers and the furniture equally indicate the
depredations of time. The Hotel du Roi, Place du Carrousel,
another house in which we lived, has been demolished, and
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
great changes have been made in the whole of that quarter
of the city neighboring upon the Tuileries. I have met here
three or four acquaintances of that date — General La Fay-
ette, Count Marbois, and Mr. Le Ray de Chaumont. Ma-
dame de Stael I had not the honor of being acquainted with
then, but you will certainly recollect her husband, who was
Swedish Ambassador here and to whom she was afterwards
married. She has now a daughter, shortly to be married,1
and General La Fayette's children, whom we used to see at
his house as infants, have now families of their own nearly
grown up. I met them all yesterday at the house of the
Count de Tracy, one of whose daughters is married to
General La Fayette's son, George. A brother of this lady,
Mr. Victor de Tracy, was a major in the French army in
the campaign of 1812 and was taken prisoner at the time of
the retreat from Moscow. It was some months before his
family ascertained where he was, and they found he had
been sent to a remote and not very comfortable part of
Russia. Count de Tracy and General La Fayette wrote to
me requesting me to endeavor to obtain either the exchange
of Mr. de Tracy, or the permission for him to return to
France upon parole. I found it impossible to obtain either
of these favors; but the Emperor Alexander, in consequence
of my application, gave orders that Mr. de Tracy should be
permitted to come to St. Petersburg and reside there, as
Count Romanzoff told me, under my special custody. He
me accordingly and spent the last winter at St. Petersburg.
I h u as still there when I left it in April last, but was shortly
afterwards released with all the other French prisoners in
Russia and returned home. He and his father, and all the
family, appreciating their obligations to me more by my
intentions and good wishes than by the trifling services
1 Albcrtinc dc Stacl, who married the Duke de Broglie (1785-1870.)
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 279
which it was in my power to render him, have manifested
their sense of it in the most affecting manner. General La
Fayette, who resides at La Grange, a country seat about
twenty miles from Paris, came last week to the city for the
particular purpose of seeing me; and yesterday I had the
pleasure of dining with him, and his son and daughter, and
their children, at Count de Tracy's, together with the Major,
the Countess de l'Aubepin, another sister, her husband and
children, and to receive the thanks of the whole of this
amiable and respectable family for a good office to one of its
worthy members. Count de Tracy was a Senator under
the late government, and is now a peer of France. The
General is in no public situation. He was always obnoxious
to the late Emperor, and it is extraordinary, though perhaps
not altogether unaccountable, that the restored family have
taken no notice of him.
Count Marbois is likewise a peer of France and first Presi-
dent of the Court of Accounts. I have been several times
at his house, and met there his daughter the Duchess of
Plaisance. She had this title by her marriage with the
Duke Charles de Plaisance, the son of the late arch-treasurer
of the Empire, who in the previous consular government was
the third consul.
In the autumn of 18 12 Madame de Stael was at St. Peters-
burg, and I then had the honor of becoming acquainted with
her. At that time she was among the warmest friends to
the cause of the allies against Napoleon, and inclined to
favor the British as his principal enemies more than could
entirely meet my concurrence. She then gave me an invita-
tion, if I should ever again be in the same city with her to
go and see her; of which I have now availed myself, and the
more readily, because since the overthrow of Napoleon, and
the European peace, she has been among the most distin-
2ND
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
guished friends of our country, and contributed in no small
/ree to give the tone to the public opinion of France and
Kurope, with regard to the vandalism of the British ex-
ploit at Washington. She has a son l who, as she says, is
tres aimable, and a beautiful daughter soon to be married to
the Duke de Broglie.
I have met here some other and more recent acquaintances
of my own countrymen, and Russians, and formed a few
new ones. My colleagues, Messrs. Bayard, Clay, and Rus-
sell, are here; the two former expect to go in a fortnight or
three weeks to London. Mr. Gallatin is still at Geneva, but
expected shortly here. We are all waiting for the decision
of the American government upon the treaty of peace, and
for the subsequent orders which may be transmitted to us.
I have had the honor of being presented to the King and
royal family, Monsieur Count D'Artois, his sons, the Dukes
D'Angouleme and De Berri, and the Duchess D'Angouleme,
the daughter of Louis 16. The King spoke to me in English,
and asked if I was related to the celebrated Mr. Adams. I
have paid a visit to my father's old friend the Duke de Vau-
guyon, but he was ill and sent me an apology for not receiv-
ing me, and a promise to call upon me when sufficiently re-
covered to go abroad.
Among the new acquisitions of Paris since my former
acquaintance with it is the famous Museum of the Louvre,
which I have visited several times, but in which the collec-
tion of pictures, statues and other monuments of sculpture
and painting is so vast and extensive that I have not yet
lui-n able to examine with attention the tenth part of them.
A the Museum is open to the public every day I shall devote
much of the leisure I may yet have to visiting it.
......
1 Auguste de Stacl.
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 281
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 145. [James Monroe]
Paris, 23 February, 181 5.
Sir:
Since the departure of Mr. Hughes and Mr. Carroll
from Ghent with two copies of the Treaty of Peace, no op-
portunity has occurred of transmitting a letter to you.
Air. Hughes arrived at Bordeaux on the first of January of
the present year, and sailed in the Transit a few days after.
They did not however get clear of the river Garonne until
the 1 2th. The British government allowed Mr. Carroll to
take passage in the corvette Favourite, the vessel in which
Mr. Baker was dispatched with the Prince Regent's ratifica-
tion. They sailed on the second of January from Plymouth.
A duplicate of the ratification was sent about the same time
by Mr. Stewart. We had intended to have sent the third
copy of the treaty by the Herald, an American schooner
lying at Amsterdam, for which we had obtained a passport
from the British Admiralty; but she was frozen up in the
river just at the time of the signature of the treaty with the
prospect of being immovable until spring. We therefore
transmitted that copy to Mr. Beasley, with the request that
he would forward it to the United States by the first op-
portunity that might occur. By a letter from him of the
10th instant I learn that he then expected to be favored
with such an opportunity in the course of three or four days.
No answer has been communicated to usfrom the British
government to the notification which we gave them, that
we had a further full power to negotiate and conclude a treaty
of commerce. No answer will probably be given until the
- -
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
decision of the government of the United States upon the
treaty of peace shall have been received. If that should be
ratified I do not anticipate any objection from the British
» a negotiation for commerce, and it would seem to be
the more expedient to both parties, inasmuch as the treaty
of peace has left unadjusted every subject of dispute between
the two nations previous to the war, together with others
which the war has given rise, besides those which may
arise upon the construction of the treaty itself. If they
should consent to this negotiation, they will, it is to be pre-
sumed, propose that it should be held at London. Under
these circumstances my colleagues have thought it advisable
to wait for the arrival of the decision in the United States
upon the treaty of peace and the instructions of the Presi-
dent subsequent to that decision. They are now all here
with the exception of Mr. Gallatin, who is upon a visit to
I -neva, but who is expected here in a few days. Mr. Bayard
and Mr. Clay propose to go shortly to London, and the
Xc-ptune, now at Brest, is to be in readiness to sail on the
first of April from thence, or from an English port as may
be found most convenient.
As there is no present prospect of a new maritime war in
Europe, the collisions of neutral and belligerent rights and
pretensions, and the still more irreconcileable right of mari-
ners and pretended rights of impressment, may be suffered
to slumber until the occasion shall rise when real interests
will again be affected by them. It is doubtful whether
Great Britain will ever be under the necessity of making
ich extraordinary exertions to maintain a naval supremacy
in any future European war as she has been in the wars which
have just terminated. She has henceforth no rival to her
naval power to apprehend in Europe. Whatever the state
<»f things may be in time of peace she has but to raise her
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 283
arm to interdict the ocean to every European state. But
as she can find no enemy in this hemisphere to oppose her
on that field, it will of course cease to be for her the field of
glory and even of combat. Her late successes in war by
land, as well as her new relations with the continent of
Europe, must infallibly continue to increase the proportion
of her exertions in that department while the navy and the
naval service will continue to decline. That they are upon
the decline the uniform experience of the present war with
the United States places beyond all question. Whenever
she may be next engaged in a European war the great strug-
gle must be expected to take place on land. Her system of
blockade will doubtless recur, but the practice of impress-
ment may perhaps not be found necessary. Should a re-
spectable naval force be kept up during the peace by the
United States and exhibit them in a state of preparation to
contest a blockade of their own coast, I take it for granted
that neither impressment nor paper blockades will ever
again form a subject of controversy between them and
Great Britain. At the same time the conduct of all the
maritime powers of Europe under the present pretended
blockade of the American coast will release the United
States from all obligations of considering the question of
blockade in reference to any duty founded upon the rights
of the blockaded party.
But the adjustment of the boundaries between the United
States and the British provinces in America, the islands in
the Bay of Fundy, our rights of fishery within the exclusive
British jurisdiction, and the British claim to the navigation
of the Mississippi, will be subjects which cannot fail of en-
tering into the discussions of any treaty of commerce to be
negotiated. The mode of settlement agreed upon for the
boundary question, though accepted by us as a substitute
2g4 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
that which we had proposed, is far from promising so
speedy or so satisfactory a termination. It is scarcely to be
expected that in either of the cases referred to two commis-
sioners they will concur in their opinions, and there may be
difficulties and inconveniences in the reference to a friendly
. crcign or state which were not fully considered when the
arrangement was proposed. Who the sovereign or state shall
In what manner the reference to him shall be made?
The certainty of his acceptance of the office and the manner
in which he may think proper to decide the questions, may
all interpose embarrassments and obstacles to the execution
of those articles. On the other hand the exercise of our fish-
ing rights within the British jurisdiction on the American
coast may give occasion to immediate collisions of force.
I presume that our people will frequent the fishing grounds
as heretofore, but from the notice given and repeated by
the British plenipotentiaries it is to be expected that this
fishing will be broken by force. The only alternative then
for the United States will be to protect it by force or to nego-
tiate upon the right. It is probable that the real object of
the British government in disputing the right at present, as
11 as in the adherence to the claim of the islands in Passa-
maquoddy Bay, is to make them equivalent for obtaining
the cession of territory necessary for the communication
between their provinces of New Brunswick and of Canada.
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 285
TO LEVETT HARRIS
Paris, 2 March, 181 5.
Dear Sir:
Since I had the pleasure of writing to you on the 5th of
last month I have had that of receiving your favors of 19
and 25 January and of 1st of February with their inclosures.
There is a French vessel on the point of sailing from Havre
for Amelia Island, but to proceed as soon as the blockade of
New York shall have been raised to that port. I have sent
dispatches to the Secretary of State by Mr. Storrow, one of
our countrymen who will go as a passenger in this vessel,
and among them have forwarded copies of your correspond-
ence with Mr. Weydemeyer relative to the treaty of peace
concluded at Ghent.
There is no doubt as Count RomanzofF remarked to you
that the British were closely pressed at Vienna at the moment
we signed the peace, and that their difficulties at that Con-
gress together with their disappointments in America pre-
sented as a favorable occasion for terminating our war.
That occasion it is equally evident was momentary. Neither
at any earlier period, nor as I believe at this time, would the
same chance have existed. The great objects at the Con-
gress of Vienna are now settled entirely to the satisfaction
of Great Britain. What the desire of our government has
been upon the treaty we sent them I will not anticipate, but
if I would have doubted of the policy on our part of signing
as we did and when we did, all such doubts would at this
instant be removed. I have invariably believed that the
issue of the Congress at Vienna would be pacific, and that
the peace in Europe would continue to be general for at least
a few years. It is probable that the state of peace itself
286 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
will bring upon the British government some embarrass-
;nts which may operate to our advantage. And I confess I
should just now have felt very awkwardly if by refusing peace
upon the terms which we did accept because the English
re closely pressed at Vienna, we should now see them as
we do completely released from that pressure, and with
carte blanche from all Europe against America. We had
before our departure from Ghent received letters from two
ministers of his Majesty the King of Prussia, reclaiming the
monument of the Queen which had been taken on its pas-
sage from Leghorn to Hamburg by an American privateer.
It would have given me great pleasure to have contributed
to obtain the restitution of that, as well as of all the boxes
belonging to Baron Strogonoff, for whom I entertain a very
particular respect. But I have been informed that the
vessel was retaken and brought into some port of France.
1 think Cherbourg or La Rochelle. It is therefore only from
the rccaptors that the articles in question are to be recovered,
and they will doubtless be recoverable even upon the British
principles of maritime law.
INSTRUCTIONS
Department of State, March 13th, 181 5.
Sir:
The restoration of peace having afforded an opportunity to re-
new the friendly intercourse with Great Britain, the President
lilcd himself of it without delay, by the appointment of a Min-
er Plenipotentiary to the British government. Your long and
ritorious services induced him with the advice and consent of
te, to confer that appointment upon you for which I have
he hon< r to transmit to you a commission and a letter of credence.
( )f this intention you were some time since advised.
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 287
On entering on the duties of this trust, your attention will
naturally be drawn to the means of preserving the peace which
has been so happily restored, by a termination, so far as it may be
practicable, of all causes of future variance. These will form the
subject of a more full communication hereafter. I shall confine
this letter to some subjects incident to the new state of things
which will probably come into discussion in your first interview.
A faithful execution of the treaty recently concluded on both
sides cannot fail to have a happy effect on the future relations of
the two countries. That the United States will perform with
strict fidelity their part you are authorized to give to the British
government the most positive assurance. Arrangements have
been already made for surrendering those parts of Upper Canada
which are occupied by our troops, and to receive in return the
posts that are held within our limits by the British forces. This
important stipulation, if no obstacle occurs on the part of the
British commanders, will be carried into effect in a few weeks.
Commissioners will also be appointed for establishing the boundary
between the United States and the British provinces according to
the treaty, who will be prepared to enter on that duty as soon as
the British commissioners arrive. It is hoped that the British
government will lose no time in appointing commissioners and
sending them out to commence the work.
I regret to have to state that the British commander in the
Chesapeake had construed that part of the first article relating to
slaves and other property very differently from what appears to
be its true import. He places slaves and other private property
on the footing of artillery, and contends that none were to be given
up except those who were at the time of the ratification in the
forts and places where they were originally captured. The absurd-
ity of this construction is too evident to admit the presumption
that it will be countenanced by his government, since it would be
impossible under it to recover any. The very act of taking the
slaves removed them from the places where they were captured.
They have in the Tangier Islands and in the vessels stationed in
288 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
this Bay many that were taken from the estates on its shores, none
of whom could be recovered. It is probable that the same con-
struction will be given by the British commanders along the coast
of Southern States, where it is understood many slaves have been
taken recently, and are held on islands and on board their vessels
within the limit of the United States.
As soon as it is known what course the British commanders will
finally pursue in this affair, I will apprise you of it. I transmit to
you an act of Congress proposing an abolition of all discriminating
duties in the commercial intercourse between the United States
and other nations. The British government will, it is presumed,
see in this act a disposition in the United States to promote on
equal and just conditions an active and advantageous commerce
between the two countries. This may lay the foundation of a
treaty, but in the mean time it is desirable that the British govern-
ment should obtain the passage of a similar act by the Parlia-
ment.
I transmit to you also a copy of a message from the President to
Congress proposing the exclusion by law of all foreign seamen,
not already naturalized from the vessels of the United States.
The session was too near its termination at the time of the rati-
fication of the treaty to allow the examination of this subject. It
may be expected, however, that it will hereafter be adopted. The
object of this regulation need not be explained to you. You will
do justice in your communications with the British government
to the amicable policy which dictates it.
In the treaty lately concluded at Ghent Great Britain takes a
priority over the United States, as is presumed, in both instru-
ments. She does so in that received here, and it is inferred that
she does it in that received by her government, from the circum-
stance that she holds that rank in the ratification of the Prince
Regent.
Great Britain takes the first rank as a power and our ministers
likewise sign under those of Great Britain. This, though compara-
tively an inferior object, is not unimportant. It was, there is no
i8i5l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 289
doubt, lost sight of in the very important object of peace. In all
other treaties between the United States and other powers the
ministers of each party sign in the same line. This was done in
the treaty of peace with Great Britain and in the subsequent
treaties with her government. In the treaty with France in 1803
the United States took rank in the instrument delivered to this
government, which was reciprocated in that delivered to the
government of France. In the treaty with Spain in 1795 Mr. Pinck-
ney signed before the Prince of Peace, the United States had
rank likewise over Spain in the instrument delivered to them. It
is understood that in treaties between all powers this principle of
equality is generally, if not invariably, recognized and observed.
In the exchange of ratifications it was thought proper to advert
to these circumstances that neither this treaty nor those which
preceded it might become a precedent, establishing a relation be-
tween the United States and Great Britain different from that
which exists between them and other powers. As the governments
of Europe attach much importance to this circumstance, it is one
to which we ought not to continue to be altogether inattentive.
It is a mortifying truth that concessions, however generous the
motive, seldom produce the desired effect. They more frequently
inspire improper pretensions in the opposite party. It may be
presumed that Mr. Baker will communicate the substance of my
remarks to him on this subject to his government. They were made
with that intention. Should a suitable opportunity present itself
it may have a good effect that you should explain to the British
government the sentiments of the President on it. I have the
honor to be with great consideration, sir, your ob. humble servt.
Jas. Monroe.
290 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
TO ABIGAIL ADAMS
Paris, 19 March, 18 15.
My Dear Mother:
Yesterday morning I received the first information of the
ratification by the government of the United States of the
treaty of peace concluded at Ghent on the 24th of last De-
cember. The ratification was received at London last Mon-
day evening, the 13th instant, and the communication of
the event by Lord Castlereagh to the Lord Mayor was made
about eleven o'clock that night. It was brought by the
Favourite corvette, the same vessel which had taken the
British ratification to the United States. Lord Fitz Roy
Somerset, the British Minister at this Court, wrote a letter
to Mr. Crawford the evening before last informing him of
the event. There had been a rumor in circulation the pre-
ceding day that the ratification in America had been refused.
It is stated in the English newspapers that the advice of the
Senate to the ratification was unanimous, a circumstance
which, if authenticated, will be the more gratifying to me,
as I had not flattered myself with the hope that it would be
so. I have no letters yet from England since the arrival of
the Favourite, and know not whether she brought dispatches
or letters for me or for any of my colleagues. If there are
none, doubtless in the course of a few days we shall receive
orders or instructions by other opportunities. As the treaty
was ratified on the 17th of February, all hostilities upon the
American coast were to cease on the first of this month, and
this day puts an end to them on the Atlantic coasts of Eu-
rope and in the British and Irish channels. Peace upon the
■•in will at least for a moment be restored. Whether
longer than for a moment will depend upon events of which
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 291
I can form no rational and confident anticipation. After
all the strange, unforeseen and wonderful vicissitudes which
the annals of Europe have exhibited during the last twenty-
five years, the turn which affairs have just now taken, and
the aspect of the country where I am, are more strange,
more astonishing, and more unexpected, than anything that
had yet occurred. The sovereigns of Europe were just
terminating at Vienna their negotiations. All the objects
of important interest which had been in discussion among
them had been settled by a convention to which all the
great powers were parties. Europe had the prospect of a
long and profound peace when, on the first day of this month,
Napoleon Bounaparte landed with eleven hundred and forty
men and four pieces of cannon at Cannes in the Department
of Var, not far from Marseilles. It is five hundred miles
distant from Paris, and I am afraid you will think I am sport-
ing with credulity when I assure you that now, at the mo-
ment when I am writing, the impression almost universal
throughout Paris is, that within six days he will enter this
city as a conqueror, without having spent an ounce of gun-
powder on his march.
I have not yet brought myself to that belief. I am no
longer indeed confident that it is impossible, because the
progress that he has undoubtedly made has by the simple
fact disproved the correctness of my anticipations. At the
first news of his landing I considered it as the last struggle
of desperation on his part. I did not believe that he would
be joined by five hundred adherents, and fully expected that
he would within ten days pay the forfeit of his rashness with
his life.
But on the tenth day after his landing he entered Lyons,
the second city of France, after a march of two hundred
miles. All the troops sent against him had either joined his
292 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
standard, or refused to fire upon his troops. At Grenoble,
which was surrendered to him without resistance, he found
a depot of artillery, arms, and ammunition. The King's
brother Count d'Artois, the Duke of Orleans and Marshal
Macdonald, who were immediately dispatched from Paris
to assemble troops and oppose the invader, arrived at Lyons
barely in time to ascertain that the attempt to resist him
there would be fruitless, and returned to Paris to see if any-
thing more effectual can be done here. After passing two
days at Lyons, Napoleon proceeded on his march, and on
Friday last, the 17th, was at Auxerre, not more than one
hundred miles from Paris.
In the mean time nothing is seen or heard here but mani-
festations of attachment and devotion to the King and the
House of Bourbon. In the streets, at all the public places,
in all the newspapers, one universal sentiment is bursting
forth of fidelity to the King, and of abhorrence and execra-
tion of this firebrand of civil and foreign war. The two
chambers of the legislative body, the principal tribunals
of justice, the municipal administrations of the departments
and cities, the National Guards, the Marshals, Generals,
and officers and garrisons of almost every city in the king-
dom, are flocking to the Tuileries with addresses of inviolable
attachment to Louis 18 and of their readiness to shed their
blood in his cause. If the slightest reliance could be placed
upon the most boisterous and unanimous expressions of
public feeling, the only conclusion would be that here are
twenty-five millions of human beings contending against
one highway robber. In private conversation the universal
expectation is that Buonaparte will enter Paris as he entered
Lyons, without opposition; but that the inevitable conse-
quence will be a foreign and civil war.
Of his proceedings, of the force now with him, and of the
,8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 293
manner in which he has advanced, scarcely anything authen-
tic is known. He has issued several proclamations with great
vehemence, but none of which have been suffered to be
published. After stating that he landed with only one
thousand men, they affirm that he entered Lyons with not
more than four thousand five hundred, and that his troops
are daily deserting from him in prodigious numbers. On
the road between Lyons and this city there have been insur-
rections of the populace in his favor; but one of the extraor-
dinary features of this romance is, that the cities through
which he marches, as soon as he had passed through them,
immediately return to the royal authority. This has already
happened at Grenoble and at Lyons.
The defection in the troops of the army is unquestionably
very great, and if not universal, is scarcely less formidable
than if it were. For the government knows not what troops
it can trust. The soldiers all cry Vive le Roi without hesita-
tion. They permit their officers to pledge them to what they
please. They march wherever they are ordered, but not a
regiment has yet been found that would fire upon the soldiers
of Buonaparte. They will not use their arms against their
former fellow soldiers. The vast majority of them are will-
ing to be neutral.
Notwithstanding the general opinion I do not believe that
he will enter Paris without bloodshed; nor even that he will
reach Paris at all. The government has been collecting a
force upon which they can depend, which will meet him
before he can arrive here, and the first actual resistance he
meets will I think determine his fate. At the same time I
must admit that the facts have hitherto turned out so con-
trary to all my expectations that my confidence in my own
judgment is shaken. At all events the week will not pass
over without some decisive result. . . . Messrs. Gallatin,
294 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
Bayard and Russell are here. Mr. Gallatin goes in a day or
two for London. Mr. Clay went last week. Mr. Bayard is
confined with a severe indisposition, and has been danger-
ously ill. Mr. Crawford has also been very unwell but has
now recovered.
My wife and son Charles left St. Petersburg on the 12th of
February. I have a letter from her of the 5th instant from
Berlin. She then expected to be here at the latest by this
day, and I am now in hourly expectation of her arrival.
Monday Morning, 20 March, 18 15.
The King left the palace of the Tuileries at one o'clock
this morning, taking a direction to the northward. Napo-
leon is expected to enter Paris this day or tomorrow. Yet
nothing but unanimity in favor of the Bourbons is discern-
ible. How it will be tomorrow I shall not anticipate.
Affectionately yours.
TO JOHN ADAMS
Paris, 21 March, 1815.
My Dear Sir:
I wrote you a short letter by Mr. Storrow, who left this
city to embark at Havre for the United States at the end of
the last month, and I inclosed with it a file of Journal des
Debais from the time of my arrival in Paris until then. A
fortnight afterwards I received a line from Mr. Storrow at
Havre, mentioning that he was still detained there, and of-
fering to take any other dispatches or letters that I might
haw ready. I had barely time to write to the Secretary of
State-, and to inclose to you a second file of the newspaper
down to the 14th instant. This second file is more interest-
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 295
ing than the other, as it contains the first official indications
here of a new series of events unfolding itself to the astonish-
ment of mankind. Mr. and Mrs. Smith have concluded to
embark at the same port of Havre in the Fingal, which has
been waiting there only for the news of the American rati-
fication of the Ghent treaty. They are to leave Paris to-
morrow, if it be allowed, and with this letter I shall send
you a third file of the newspaper which will bring the first
part of this new drama to its denoument. I wrote my mother
the day before yesterday a short and very general narrative
of the apparition of Napoleon Buonaparte. . . . The night
of the same day when I thus wrote, Napoleon slept at Fon-
tainebleau. At one o'clock yesterday morning the King and
royal family left the Tuileries, and took the road to Lille.
The King issues a proclamation which was only published
yesterday morning after his departure, closing the session
of the two legislative chambers which he had convoked im-
mediately on being informed of the landing of Napoleon.
It convoked them both anew, to meet at a place to be pointed
out to them hereafter. It adds that by the defection of a
part of the army the enemy had succeeded in approaching
the capital, and that although sure of the attachment of the
immense majority of the inhabitants of Paris, the King had
determined by a temporary retirement to a different part
of the kingdom to avoid the calamities which might befall
the metropolis by resistance before it. In the course of the
morning of yesterday a detachment of Napoleon's advanced
guard entered the city amidst the acclamations of the same
multitude which has been for the last fortnight making the
atmosphere ring with the cries of Five le Roy. They took
possession of the Tuileries, where the three-colored flag is
now waving in triumph, and last evening the walls of all the
public places were covered with the proclamation of Napo-
296 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
leon, par le grace de Dieu, et les Constitutions, Empereur des
Franqais, addressed to the people and to the army, pasted
•r the proclamations scarcely dry of Louis 18, declaring
Napoleon Buonaparte a traitor and rebel, and command-
ing all civil and military authorities, and even every individ-
ual citizen, to seize and deliver him to a court martial, to
identify his person and apply the penalties of the law. Be-
tween ten and eleven o'clock last night, I saw in the garden
of the Palais Royal, a huge bonfire of all the proclamations,
indignations, execrations, addresses, verses and appeals to
the people and army against the Corsican monster and ty-
rant, which had been loading the columns of the arches the
preceding fortnight, and many of which had been stuck up
there the same morning, probably by the identical hands
which were now with shouts of thunder committing them
to the flames.
It was expected that Napoleon himself would have entered
the city last evening, but it is said that there is to be a
triumphal entry at noon this day.
I had written thus far when the Journal de V Empire of this
day was brought in to me. When the allied forces entered
Paris this time last year, the Journal de V Empire was in one
night metamorphosed into the Journal des Debats. On my
arrival in Paris I subscribed for it. Last night it underwent
the counter metamorphosis, and this morning it is again the
Journal de V Empire, though it still bears the timbre royal.
\ • >u will find it in the file, and if you will take the trouble of
comparing the contents of the Journal des Debats of yester-
day, 20 March, with those of the Journal de V Empire of this
day, 21 March, you will see an epitome of what is taking
place at Paris, and perhaps throughout France. The other
public journals do not even think it worth while to change
thc-ir names.
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 297
It appears by this paper that the Emperor Napoleon ar-
rived at the palace of the Tuileries last evening about eight
o'clock, and it may give you some idea of the tranquillity
with which he entered, that it was not until I received the
paper that I knew he was in the city. He entered Grenoble
and Lyons about the same time, and in the same manner,
with a report circulating that he was not to come until the
next day. There may be a particular motive for this. Not
more than four or five regiments of troops have entered the
city with him, and it is not yet possible to say what the
numbers of the troops who have joined him amount to.
Thus much however appears to be certain, that on the first
day of this month, at the moment of landing, he announced
himself to the nation and the army as their Emperor, and
that he has been recognized as such by all that portion of
both who have come in his presence. That no legitimate
and universally acknowledged sovereign ever traversed his
dominions with more perfect acquiescence and submission
on the part of his subjects than he has found throughout the
whole road, or was ever received in his capital with more
tranquillity and unresisting obedience. It now remains to
be seen whether the partisans of the Bourbons in any other
part of the country will manifest at the moment of crisis an
attachment more active and more energetic than has been
found in their friends at the metropolis.
The newspaper says it is not known what road the family
of Bourbon took on leaving Paris, but it is well known that
they took the road towards the north. A notification was
sent to the accredited foreign ministers that the Court was
about to remove to Lille, and inviting them to join it there;
with the option however of returning to their own govern-
ments. The garrison of Lille has been amongst the most
ardent in their protestations of fidelity to the King; but
jog THE WRITINGS OF [1815
whether he will trust himself to their hands may be doubted,
and if he does, whether it will be safe for him to remain long
with them.
At present the prospect is that in a very few weeks all
France will be ranged once more under domination of Napo-
leon. I can scarcely offer a conjecture what part will be
taken by the other powers of Europe on this occasion.
Napoleon holds out the olive branch to them in the remark
that the French must forget that they have been the masters
of other nations, but he holds out the sword in the declara-
tion that foreign nations must not be suffered to inter-
meddle in the affairs of France. At all events the settlement
of European affairs at the Congress of Vienna cannot be
considered as definitive.
In some of the letters which I received from you last year
you made inquiries for certain books which I did not find it
possible to procure before my arrival here. I now send you
by Mr. Smith the Timaeus of Locris and Ocellus Lucanus,
with the translations and commentary of the Marquis D'Ar-
gens; and I add to them another piece of anti-christianity, of
the same translator and commentator, the defence of Pagan-
ism by the Apostate Julian. Scaliger's Prophecy of Enoch
it has been impossible for me to find even here, though
I have hunted for it at all the classical shops and stalls of the
city.
My wife has not yet arrived, and as she has had ample
time to come since she wrote me on the 5th instant from
Berlin, I am anxious for her arrival. Since the approach of
Napoleon towards Paris vast numbers of foreigners, and
many others, have left the city and taken flight in all direc-
tions. They have employed all the post horses on the road,
so that I am apprehensive my wife may have been detained
tor want of them. Possibly there may be some momentary
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 299
impediment to the passage of travellers at the frontiers. I
hope to be relieved from any anxiety before Mr. Smith goes.
I am etc.
TO ABIGAIL ADAMS
Paris, 22 April, 181 5.
My Dear Mother:
Mr. and Mrs. Smith left Paris on the 22d of March, to
embark in the Fingal at Havre for New York. I wrote to
you by them on the 19th. They sailed on the 30th with a
fair wind, and having a fine ship and the most favorable
season of the year for a voyage to America, I hope they are
at this time near the port of their destination. Here the
easterly winds have constantly prevailed from the time of
their departure. My wife and son Charles arrived here the
day after they went away. Mrs. Adams performed the
journey from St. Petersburg in forty days, and it has been
of essential service to her and Charles' health. She entered
France precisely at the time when the revolution was taking
place which has overthrown again the family of Bourbons,
and witnessed the enthusiasm of the troops and of the people
in favor of Napoleon.
Prepared as every person accustomed to reflect upon
political events ought to have been for occurrences of an ex-
traordinary nature in France, I must acknowledge that those
which have been passing around me have been not only un-
expected to me but totally contrary to my most confident
expectations. When I first heard of the landing of Napoleon
five hundred miles distant from Paris, with eleven hundred
men and four pieces of cannon, I considered it as the last
struggle of a desperate adventurer, and did not imagine that
he would penetrate twenty leagues into the interior of France.
300 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
After knowing him to have reached Grenoble, Lyons and
even Auxerre, I could not still believe that he would become
without bloodshed master of Paris; and at this hour I can
scarcely realize that he is the quiet and undisputed sovereign
of France. It was impossible not to perceive that the govern-
ment of the Bourbons was not cordially cherished by the
people of France; but the king was generally respected, his
administration had been mild and moderate, and so thor-
oughly had the sentiments of the French nation been mis-
represented in the course of the last year that I believed the
domination of Napoleon to have been universally detested
by them. The facts which I have before my eyes have now
brought me to a different conclusion. Although the attach-
ment of the army to Napoleon has been manifested in the
most unequivocal manner, there has been scarcely any mili-
tary agency in his restoration. If the people in any one of
the cities through which he passed to come here had been
opposed to him, he could not have made his way. If the
people of Paris had been seriously averse to his government,
the national guards of the city alone would have outnum-
bered five times all the troops that had then declared in his
favor. I wrote you in my last that the cities through which.
he had passed, immediately after he had left them returned
i" the royal authority. That was one of the fables circu-
lated by the adherents to the royal cause, which I had the
simplicity to believe. It was entirely without foundation.
B >rdeaux, with the Duchess of Angouleme within its walls
inimating the partisans of her house to resistance, capitu-
rd to an imperial general with 150 men, before they could
: roach the city. The Duke d'Angouleme, who of all the
royal familj alone succeeded in collecting five or six thou-
md men, prepared to defend the cause by force of arms,
B overpowered by the numbers of National Guards who
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 301
gathered against him, before any competent number of the
regular army could be brought to bear upon him, and was
by those National Guards detained as a prisoner, when the
commander of the regular troops had already consented to
a stipulation that he should be allowed to embark and quit
the country. Indeed the sympathy of sentiment between
the people and the army is greater in France than in any
other country. From the system of conscription as it has
been carried into effect, and the wars in which France has
been for more than twenty years constantly engaged, the
leading men of every village in the country are old soldiers
who have served under the banners of Napoleon. Men who
having passed through their five years of service have been
released from the armies and returned to the conditions of
civil life. This class of men form a link of association be-
tween the army and the people. They are according to
their several standings in society the persons who enjoy the
highest consideration in their neighborhoods. They give the
tone to the opinions and feelings of the rest of the people,
and they are as enthusiastically devoted to Napoleon as any
part of the existing army. The purchasers of national prop-
erty are another numerous and powerful class of people
attached to him by their interests. Their numbers at the
lowest estimate that I have heard made amount to two mil-
lions of people. Louis 18 by his declarations previous to
his restoration had solemnly promised that none of the sales
of this property that had taken place should be invalidated.
He had confirmed this promise by an article in the constitu-
tional charter, which he held out as a grant from him to his
people; notwithstanding which his own ministers in their
official papers, all the public journals under the absolute
control of his court, all the princes of his family by their
discourses, and even himself by indirect means, were con-
302 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
tinually alarming the possessors of that species of property
and had staggered its security to such an extent, that since
the restoration it had fallen to one quarter part of its sale-
able value. Besides this all the ancient nobility were assert-
ing anew their claims to the feudal rights which had been so
oppressive upon the people, and the priesthood equally
favored by the King and court were already clamorous for
the reestablishment of tythes. The persons who had acted
the most distinguished parts in the Revolution were ex-
cluded from all appointments, and even arbitrarily removed
from judicial offices and literary and scientific institutions.
The institutions themselves are degraded, the National In-
stitute in its four classes was dissolved, the old academies
were restored, and the King undertook of his mere authority
to expel from them twenty-two of their numbers, and to
appoint other persons in their stead. By this series of meas-
ures, and a few instances of arbitrary acts oppressive to in-
dividuals, the government of Louis 18 in the short space of
two months had rendered itself more odious to the mass of
the nation, than all the despotism and tyranny of Napoleon
had made him in ten years.
But while the French nation has been thus earnest and
thus nearly unanimous in receiving again Napoleon for their
sovereign, the allies of the Congress of Vienna have declared
that there can be neither peace nor truce with him; that by
violating his convention with them (which they had pre-
viously violated in all its parts) he had forfeited the only
legal title he had to existence, and had delivered himself up
I 1 the public vengeance. It is not easy precisely to deter-
mine what those high and mighty personages meant by
these expressions, and the most charitable manner that I
can account for them is to suppose that they had no meaning
at all. As Napoleon was at all events not the subject of the
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 303
allied sovereigns, they could not mean that he should be
punished for his unpardonable offence (the breach of a
treaty) by the sentence of their judicial tribunals. As a
sovereign (and by the very treaty of Fontainebleau to which
they refer they had all acknowledged him as such) the only
way by which they could punish his offences was by war.
It is a new maxim in the law of nations that a sovereign by
the breach of a treaty forfeits all legal right to existence; its
application might perhaps be found inconvenient to some
of the high allies themselves. After all, it is to war that they
must resort, and their declaration may import that if in
that war they should take him prisoner, they will put him
to death without ceremony. They did not imagine that
before they could put in execution any threat against him
he would be at the head of the whole French nation, with
an army of four hundred thousand men to support him.
But the worst of their declaration is that it pledges them ir-
revocably to a new war which may be more dreadful than
those from which Europe was just emerging. He has an-
swered them by offering peace, and almost imploring peace
of them. There is every probability that his offers will be
rejected. They are determined on a second invasion of
France. I believe, though with some distrust of my own
judgment, that they will meet resistance greater than they
expect. Hitherto no hostilities have taken place, but the
troops are marching with all possible expedition to the
frontiers, and the allied sovereigns are to transfer their
Congress at Vienna to their headquarters at Frankfort on
the Main.
I received a few days since your favors of the 28 Feb-
ruary and 8 March, which arrived at Liverpool and were
transmitted to me from London. I am waiting here for the
commission to Great Britain, and the instructions of our
304 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
government.1 The state of Mr. Bayard's health will not
admit of his going at present to St. Petersburg. His inten-
tion still is to return to the United States in the Neptune,
and he expects to sail in about three weeks or a month from
Havre. Mr. Russell is gone to Sweden. Mr. Gallatin and
Mr. Clay are in London. Mr. Gallatin must wait for new
credentials to the Emperor Napoleon, unless before they
arrive Louis 18 should again be restored. Mr. Crawford
goes to England next week and intends also to return home
in the Neptune.
My dutiful and affectionate remembrance to my father
and dear friends around you, and believe me as ever faith-
fully yours.
TO JOHN ADAMS
Paris, 24 April, 181 5.
Dear Sir:
I wrote you by Mr. Storrow and by Mr. Smith, who left
this city with the intention of embarking in different vessels
f< .1 the United States, but who both actually went in the
Fingal from Havre. I sent you by them a regular file of the
Journal des Debats from the time of my arrival here until it
was metamorphosed into the Journal de V Empire. Mr. Craw-
f< »rd is now going to England, intending to embark there for
America. I avail myself of the opportunity to write you
again, and to inclose the file of the Journal de V Empire from
the time of Mr. Smith's departure.
I have received your favors of 20 February and 10 March,
with the inclosed letter from the President to you, and the
1 On April 5 he had learned by way of London that Gallatin had been appointed
minister to France, Bayard to Russia, and himself to England.
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 3°5
copy of instructions to you in 1779 in relation to the fish-
eries. As you promise to write me again upon the subject,
I hope to receive your letter in time to use to the best ad-
vantage the information it will contain. I have heard by
letters from England, as well as by yours, of the new mission
assigned to me; but I have not received the commission or
dispatches of any kind from the government. I am in
hourly expectation of their arrival. I have never been
charged with a public trust from which there was so little
prospect of any satisfactory result, or which presented itself
with so little anticipation of anything agreeable to myself
or my family. The peace mission had anxieties and inaus-
picious prospects enough; but the division of responsibilities
between five colleagues, the release from the servitude and
oppressive expenses of court attendance, and the faculty of
living in a reputable manner without rushing into ruin,
made them supportable, and the issue having been more
fortunate than we could have any reason to hope, above all
the consolation of having rendered an acceptable service to
our country, has been ample satisfaction and compensation
for all the disquietudes with which it was attended. I had
indulged the hope that the negotiation with Great Britain
immediately subsequent to the peace would still have been
under a joint commission. We had in fact separate full
powers to negotiate a treaty of commerce. We communi-
cated them to the British government immediately after
the signature of the peace, but no answer has been returned
to our communication. Towards the close of the month
of February Lord Castlereagh was here upon his return from
Vienna. Mr. Bayard lodged at the same hotel where he did
and had an interview with him. Mr. Clay, who is now in
London, had also had an interview with him, and from the
opinions expressed by his Lordship it appears that the British
3o6 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
government are not at this time inclined to negotiate a
treaty of commerce.
It gives me great satisfaction to find your opinion con-
curring with mine, that our rights to the fisheries remain
precisely as they stood by the treaties of peace in 1782 and
1783, and I hope and trust that our government and country
will entertain the same opinion and be prepared to maintain
it against all opposition; that the rights will all be immedi-
ately exercised by the fishermen, and that if they should be
in any manner contested by the British government, they
will be supported on our part with all necessary spirit and
vigor. We must not flatter ourselves with the belief that the
restoration of peace by compact with Great Britain has re-
stored either to her government or people pacific sentiments
towards us. By an unparalleled concurrence of circum-
stances Britain during the year 18 14 gave the law to all
Europe. After reducing France to a condition scarcely
above that of a British colony she wielded the machines of
the congress at Vienna according to her good will and pleas-
ure. Lord Castlereagh, since his return to England, has
boasted in Parliament, and with great reason, that every
object in discussion at Vienna in which Great Britain took
any interest had been adjusted entirely to his satisfaction.
The King of France had publicly and solemnly declared,
that it was, under God, to the councils of the British Prince
Regent that he was indebted for his restoration to the throne
of his ancestors — a declaration commendable on one hand •
as a candid acknowledgment of the truth, but very indis-
■ »n the other, as fixing the seal of the deepest degrada-
tii >n upon the very people whom he was thus to govern. But
what is the situation of a King of France holding his crown
as a donation from a British Regent? Louis 18 furnished
a deplorable answer to this question. He was in substance
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 307
a Vice-Roy under the Duke of Wellington. Since the fall of
his government, I have had unequivocal information that
one of the first measures of the council of Louis 18 was a
serious deliberation, whether he should not declare war
against the United States, and make a common cause with
England in that quarrel. It was finally determined that
such a step would be inexpedient, because it would too vio-
lently shock the sentiments of the French nation which were
all in our favor. But even after determining to declare a
state of neutrality, the instructions to the commanding
officers at all the maritime ports were, to show every favor
to the British and every partiality against the Americans
short of absolute hostility. The applications from the Amer-
ican ministers were slighted and most of them were left un-
answered. Those from the British Ambassador, however
arrogant and overbearing, were sure of meeting with com-
pliance. Every manifestation of the public sentiment all
over the country was directly the reverse. The Americans
were everywhere treated with kindness and respect, while
the English were loaded with detestation and ridicule.
This subserviency of the French to the British court has
been one of the great causes of the astonishing facility with
which Napoleon has again overthrown the Bourbons, a
facility which I can scarcely credit with the demonstration
of the fact before my own eyes. The allied sovereigns have
declared that there can be neither peace nor truce with
Napoleon, and they appear to have determined irrevocably
to wage anew a common war against France for the sole
avowed purpose of destroying him. He has offered them
peace, and almost implored peace of them; but he is prepar-
ing with all possible vigor and activity for the defence of
the country against invasion. The great mass of the people
and of the army are in his favor. His own measures since
3os THE WRITINGS OF [1815
his return have all been calculated for popularity. Those
of the Bourbons and of the allies against him have increased
his partisans more than anything done by himself. There
is a spirit of enthusiasm rising in the nation to support him
with which I think the allies, numerous, formidable, and
animated as they are, will find it no easy task to contend.
1 have been so utterly disappointed in all the anticipations
I had formed that the Bourbons would have energetic ad-
herents and supporters in France, that I speak with great
diffidence in stating the belief that Napoleon will have
firmer and more devoted friends. When the myriads of
allies enter upon the French territory, he may perhaps again
be deserted and betrayed. But the symptoms are all of a
different character. A very few weeks will suffice to solve
the problem.
If Napoleon should be destroyed, and France again re-
stored to the Bourbons, England will again be the dictatress
of Europe. It is however scarcely possible to suppose that
the Bourbons can ever hold the crown of France, even with
the show of independence left them at their last restoration.
The army cannot be annihilated with Napoleon. The na-
11 can never endure the dominion of a king appealing to
divine right as his only title to the throne; of nobles reclaim-
ing feudal prerogatives, and priests exacting tithes. As his
last resource there is an impression here that Napoleon, if
the allies make him the pretext of the war, will declare
France again a republic, and if the nation will not fight for
him, it is yet probable that they will endure every extremity
against the Bourbons.
In .in- o\ the last newspapers on the file which I inclose,
you will find the supplementary constitution, which is now
n> be presented to the acceptance or rejection of the people.
'Ik- n nnibers of the votes returned will indicate to a certain
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 309
degree the real dispositions of the nation. The constitution
itself approaches nearer to the English model than any of
those they have hitherto tried. The legislative bodies have
more independence and more power than had been granted
to them since the government of the Directory. The popular
features introduced in it, and the control under which it
places the imperial dignity itself clearly prove that it is not
upon a mere military movement that Napoleon now relies
for support. He courts the people still more than the sol-
diers, and in the recent events the impulse has evidently
been stronger from the people upon the army than from the
army upon the people.
Should Napoleon now maintain his ground the supremacy
of England in the affairs of Europe will cease. Cramped
and crippled as France is by the dimensions to which the
Bourbons had consented to reduce her, under his administra-
tion with a few years of peace she will not be a counterpoise
to the inordinate influence of Britain, but occupy enough
of her attention and anxieties to make it her unequivocal
policy to be upon good terms with us. It is in her interest
alone that we shall ever find a pledge of her equity and
moderation.
My wife and Charles are well and join me in assurances
of duty and affection with which I remain ever faithfully
yours.
0 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY
[George Washington Campbell]
London, 24 April, 181 5.
Sir:
The day after I had the honor of writing you last I re-
ceived the answer of Messrs. Willinks and Van Staphorst
to the letter which I had written them communicating your
proposals for the sale of the stock which had been sent last
summer to Europe. They stated that they believed a sale
might be effected at 75 @ 76 per cent and inclosed a calcula-
tion to show from the state of the exchange between Amster-
dam and this place that it would be equivalent to 90 @ 91
at London.
On receiving a few days after your instructions of 23 May
1 immediately wrote to them again and also consulted with
Mr. Alexander Baring concerning the execution of them.
Mr. Baring assured me that the interest payable here on the
1st instant upon the Louisiana loan should at all events be
paid, and also the bills which you had authorized the bankers
at Amsterdam to draw upon his house for the purpose of
discharging the interest payable on the same loan in Holland
should be duly paid, though he intimated that this addition
to the large advances already due to his house from the
I fnited States would not be altogether convenient.
With regard to the immediate disposal at the market price
here of a sufficient portion of the certificates to refund the
mm of 246,000 dollars to be paid for this interest: the first
that the certificates were in the keeping of Mr. Jackson * at
Paris and second that they declare the interest upon them
1 Henry Jackson, United States charge d'affaires.
1815] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 311
expressly to be payable semi-annually at Amsterdam, which
Mr. Baring observed would make them utterly unsaleable
here. I wrote immediately to Mr. Jackson requesting him
to transmit the certificates to me, but have not yet received
them or his answer, and suggested to Mr. Baring expedients
for a stipulation to be confirmed at the Treasury of the
United States that the payment should be made in London.
He thought the sale might be most conveniently effected at
Amsterdam, and appeared disposed to renew the proposal
of taking the whole three millions at 90 per cent, he to ef-
fect the sale there, and save the advantage of the exchange
by drawing for the proceeds of the sale to this country.
Although the exchange at Philadelphia or Baltimore upon
London, as quoted by the latest advices from the United
States, might render a sale of the certificates here at 90
equivalent to the 95 by which I am limited in your instruc-
tions, yet in the uncertainty whether that exchange will con-
tinue at the same rate I do not feel myself warranted in
accepting the proposals of Mr. Baring. For while subscrip-
tions are making to the loan in the United States at 85, a
remittance here of funds received from such subscriptions,
even by bills upon which a premium of five per cent should
be paid, would be at least as advantageous to the United
States as a sale here at 90.
To give you a correct and more particular insight into the
nature of Mr. Baring's proposals I requested him to commit
them to writing, and have consequently received from him
a letter of which I inclose herewith a copy.
I believe it may be assumed as a general principle that
the United States will never be able to obtain by a sale of
the certificates of their stock in Europe more, and very
rarely indeed so much as they can at the corresponding
times obtain for them at home. Credit is of so sympathetic
3I2
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
a nature that the demand in Europe will always be regulated
by the demand in America. If the communications of the
American government with their agents abroad were in
point of briskness and dispatch upon a footing with those
of private speculation, they might occasionally have the
advantages derived from anticipated information which con-
stitute the whole secret and science of European stock job-
bing. But in the actual state of these communications I pre-
sume the government is constantly many days, and often
weeks and months, behind the public newspapers in the re-
ceipt of all official intelligence from their agents abroad, as
they in their turn are always equally in arrear in the intelli-
gence which they receive from home. Whether any better
organization of the official intercourse will be thought ex-
pedient must be determined by the government itself.
I am etc.
TO PETER PAUL FRANCIS DE GRAND
Paris, 28 April, 1815.
Dear Sir:
I received at Ghent on the 24 November last your favor
of 16 October preceding. I was on the 27th writing an answer
to it and, as there was until then no prospect that the nego-
tiation upon which we were engaged would terminate in the
conclusion of a peace, I was descanting upon the manner in
which the British were waging war in America, and upon
tin- course which their government were pursuing in their
transaction with us, in a temper which the topics touched
upon in your letter and the excitement of the outrage at
\\ ashington, as well as of the treatment we had ourselves
experienced, had not been calculated to render very amicable.
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 3*3
While I was writing, and before I had finished my letter, a
communication was brought to me from the British pleni-
potentiaries. It was their note of 26 November, which I
presume has been published among the documents of the
negotiation in America. It was the first opening to the ex-
pectation that the British government would eventually ac-
cede to our terms — the first dawn of peace that had arisen
to our hopes. It produced so immediate an effect upon my
disposition that I could not finish my letter to you in the
spirit with which it had been commenced. I laid it aside,
and as my confidence in the new pacific appearances was not
very strong, reserved it for conclusion in case it should ul-
timately prove to be desirable. The state of uncertainty
between hope and distrust continued until the 23rd of De-
cember, and on the 24th we signed the treaty. My fragment
of a letter to you became then altogether unseasonable. An
immediate pressure of official duty then succeeded which
left us not a moment for that of our private correspondence.
I remained at Ghent for a month subsequent to the conclu-
sion of the treaty, and then came to this city where I am
waiting for orders from the government of the United States.
Here I received a few days since your favors of 5 and 6 of
March, with a duplicate of that of 16 October. They were
brought by Mr. Copeland. During the continuance of the
war the predominating sentiment of my mind was of regret
that it existed. The situation in which we were left by the
sudden and wonderful turn of affairs in Europe was so full
of danger, and the support given to our enemy by the dis-
affection of so large a portion of our own countrymen was
so disheartening, that, highly as I always estimated the
general character of the nation, there were moments when
I almost despaired of our issuing honorably from the war.
When by the most extraordinary concurrence of circum-
xtA THE WRITINGS OF [1815
stances Britain became the mistress of Europe, and, at peace
with all the rest of the world, pointed the whole force of her
empire against us, the most sanguine temper could not have
anticipated that precisely then would be the period of our
most glorious triumphs. Our naval heroes from the com-
mencement of the war had maintained and increased the
honor of the nation, but the campaign of 1814 was necessary
to restore the credit of our reputation for the conduct of war
upon the land. The effect of the war had been to raise our
national character in the opinion of Europe, and I hope it
will have the consequence of raising us in the British nation
and government; that it will convince them that we are not
to be trampled upon with impunity; that, dearly as we love
peace, the experiment of kicking us into war is not a safe one;
and that it is a far wiser policy in them not to drive us to
tremities which may be essential, but which cannot fail
to bring forth energies which they might flatter themselves
we did not possess so long as they should suffer them to lie
dormant. Most seriously do I wish that the result of the
war may also be instructive to ourselves; that the confidence
in our own vigor and resources which its issue is calculated to
inspire may be tempered by the full and serious considera-
tion of the deficiencies that it has disclosed; that it will teach
us to cherish the defensive strength of a respectable navy,
to persevere in the encouragement of our domestic manufac-
tures; that it will lead us to a more vigorous and independ-
ent system of finance; and, above all, that it will teach those
among us who in the time of the distresses of their country
have taken a pride in hanging as a dead weight upon its
councils, who have refused their aid to its exertions and
have denied even their gratitude and applause to the valiant
achievement of its defenders, that they have equally mis-
taken the true path of honor and patriotism. They have
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 315
now full leisure to reflect that without their assistance, with-
out even the trifling boon of their applause, in spite of all
their opposition, in spite of their utmost ill-will, and in spite
almost of their treason, the nation has issued in face of the
whole world in face of its enemy and with its own conscious
satisfaction honorably from the war. Their prejudices are
indeed so inveterate, their self-conceit is so arrogant, and
their views of public affairs are so contracted, that I have
little expectation of ever seeing them converted from the
error of their ways. I trust, however, that they will find it
more difficult than ever to convince the country that all the
talents or all the integrity of the nation are in their hands.
I perceive in the newspaper brought by Mr. Copeland that
some feeble efforts were making by their wise and virtuous
party to damp the general joy at the ratification of the treaty,
by representing it as a disadvantageous one to us. These
efforts are however much more insignificant than I had ex-
pected they would be. It is so unusual to find either candor,
consistency, or even decency, in the spirit of party, that I
fully reckoned upon seeing the same persons, who had been
loading the federal presses with groans and execrations at
our rejecting the terms first proposed by the British com-
missioners, turn against the peace itself the moment after
it should be published, and proclaim it the disgrace of the
nation. I was even far from hoping that the treaty would be
unanimously ratified by the Senate. The federal members
of that body have done honor to themselves by rising on
that occasion above the suggestions of party feelings, and
have left them to rankle only in the state legislature of
Massachusetts and the gazettes. The Hartford Convention
probably did not realize the hopes or expectations of those
by whom it was convoked. From the apologetic manner in
which its proceedings are defended by one of its members
3l6 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
upon his return, it would seem not to have given satisfaction
to its own partisans. The commission afterwards sent by
the Massachusetts legislature to propose that the resources
the general government should be placed at the disposal
of that of the state was unlucky in arriving at Washington
just in time to meet the ratification of the peace.1 But the
precedent may be laid up for a more propitious time. The
peace of Ghent, it is to be hoped, will be longer lived than
that of Europe, settled by the treaty of Paris on the 30th
May, 1 8 14, and which the Congress of Vienna has been
dancing all the last winter to consolidate as the basis of the
permanent tranquillity of Europe. They had previously by
a solemn treaty constituted Napoleon Buonaparte Emperor
of the island of Elba. On the first of March last, Louis le
Desire was quietly seated upon his throne in the 20th year
of his reign by divine right, and in the first year by the bay-
onets of the allied armies. The Emperor of Elba lands in
France with eleven hundred men and four pieces of cannon.
On the twentieth day after his landing he takes possession
of the palace of the Tuileries, after a triumphant and unre-
sisted march of two hundred leagues. Louis le Desire, who
had proclaimed the Emperor of Elba a traitor and rebel, and
commanded him to be shot without a trial by any court
martial that should catch him, escapes only by a rapid flight
beyond the French territory from being his prisoner. The
Duke of Bourbon capitulates for permission to escape from
the Vendee, the Duchess of Angouleme from Bordeaux, and
the Duke of Angouleme, after attempting resistance a few
days, becomes actually the Emperor of Elba's prisoner, and
obtains only from his clemency the permission to quit the
1 A bill was before the Senate for paying the war claims of Massachusetts, but
it was killed in the House of Representatives. The commissioners from Massachu-
setts were Harrison Gray Otis, Thomas Handasyd Perkins and William Sullivan.
'.' ri ■■ n, Harrison Gray Otis, II. 161; Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XLVIII.
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 317
country. In the mean time the high allies at Vienna solemnly
declared that the Emperor of Elba, constituted by them-
selves, had no longer any legal right to existence, because
he had broken the treaty; that there could be neither peace
nor truce with him, and that he had delivered himself up to
the public vengeance. They have since bound themselves
to wage a new joint war, professedly for the sole purpose of
accomplishing his destruction; they have refused to listen
to his entreaties for peace, and have solemnly stipulated
never to treat with him or with any person in his name.
This war is now on the eve of blazing. I cannot undertake
to foretell its result. . . .
TO GEORGE WILLIAM ERVING
London,1 5 June, 1815.
My Dear Sir:
I have received your letters of 10 and 22 ultimo, and like
the relisher of a feast they have principally served to sharpen
my appetite for more. There was none for the Duke of
Seventino. He has done me the honor to call upon me, and I
regretted anew that you declined entrusting to me the pinch
of snuff for him. I shall be much obliged to you if you will
keep every large bundle of American newspapers that may-
be directed to me and happen to fall into your hands. I
have no doubt of being amply supplied here with that valu-
able domestic manufacture and, even if I should not, the
Times and the Courier, you know, will make me amends.
I found upon my arrival here my two eldest sons fresh from
the headquarters of good principals,2 and had news enough
1 Adams left Paris, May 16, and reached London on the 25th.
- Massachusetts.
3X8
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
for one batch by them. Mr. Lee's correspondent should
have told him that at the Massachusetts elections both sides
had lost thousands of votes since the last year. That is,
:. cither party was so sharp set. Perhaps this is a better
ymptom than any change of men could have been. It is
1 rue that the Strong party fell away more than the other.
Your favorite, I fancy, will stand no chance next year nor
any other. The federal papers of last summer insinuated
that he had declared himself in private against the war, and
they half promised to take him up if he would come out with
an open opposition against it. How say you?
The Constitution did take the British sloops of war and
arrived with one of them in the United States; the other was
retaken. But this action makes no figure in the print shops
of London. We have only the Endymion alone taking the
President, and Bonaparte trying to swallow the world which
Mr. Bull alone takes out of his mouth. Lord Castlereagh,
however, cheers Mr. Bull with the assurance that he will not
really have to perform this service alone.
The Austrian Cabinet is so distinguished for good faith
and sincerity that you may well rest hopes upon a negotia-
tion in that quarter. If your 1000 guinea bet at Lloyd's
depends upon that reed, gave la maree. Excuse me from
taking a share with you. Adieu, and let me hear from you
as often as possible. Truly yours.
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 319
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 1. [James Monroe]
London, June 23, 1815.
Sir:
• ••••••
I gave immediate notice of my appointment and of my
arrival to Lord Castlereagh, the principal Secretary of State
for the Department of Foreign Affairs, and requested an
interview with him, for which he appointed Monday the
29th ultimo. I then delivered to him a copy of the creden-
tial letter to the Prince Regent, who afterwards appointed
the 8th of this month, a levee day, to receive it. Lord Castle-
reagh had intimated to me that if I desired it, a private
audience at an earlier day would be granted to me by the
Prince to receive the letter of credence, but I did not con-
sider it to be necessary. On the day of the levee Mr. Ches-
ter,1 the assistant Master of the Ceremonies, enquired of me
whether I had a letter for the Queen. I informed him that
I had not.
He said that such a letter was usual though not indispen-
sable; that it was generally given by courts where there were
family connections with this court, and had always been
sent by the Republic of Holland. That an audience however
would be granted to me by the Queen when she could come
to town.
At the meeting with Lord Castlereagh I had some loose
conversation with him on the subjects mentioned in your in-
structions of 13 March, and on some others which had arisen
from certain occurrences here.
1 Robert Chester.
320 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
I stated to him that the first object to which my attention
was directed in the instructions which I had received from
the American government, was the means of preserving the
peace which had been so happily restored; that I was author-
ized to give the most positive assurances that the United
States would perform with strict fidelity the engagements
contracted on their part, and I presented as tokens of a dis-
position to proceed still further in the adoption of measures
of a conciliatory nature towards Great Britain, the act of
Congress for the repeal of the discriminating duties, and the
message of the President recommending to Congress the
adoption of measures for confining to American seamen the
navigation of American vessels; and that although Congress,
owing to the shortness of time, had not acted upon that mes-
sage, its principles would probably be hereafter adopted.
I promised to furnish him copies of these papers which I
accordingly sent him the next morning.
He said that what had been done by the government of
the United States with regard to seamen had given the
greater satisfaction here, as an opinion, probably erroneous,
had heretofore prevailed that the American government
encouraged and invited the service of foreign seamen.
That as to the principle he was afraid that there was little
prospect of a possibility of coming to an agreement, as we
adhered to the right of naturalization for which we con-
tended, and as no government here could possibly abandon
the right to the allegiance of British subjects.
I answered that I saw no better prospect than he did of
an agreement upon the principle. But it was not the dis-
position of the American government or nation to apply
ill- -of arms to the maintenance of any mere abstract
principle. The number of British seamen naturalized in
America was so small that it would be no object of concern
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 321
to this government. If British subjects were excluded for
the future, there could be no motive for taking men from
American vessels. If the practice totally ceased, we should
never call upon the British government for any sacrifice of
their principle. When the evil ceased to be felt, we should
readily deem it to have ceased to exist. He said that there
would be every disposition in this government to guard
against the possibility of abuse, and that the Admiralty
was now occupied in prescribing regulations for the naval
officers, which he hoped would prevent all cause of complaint
on the part of the United States. He then mentioned the
late unfortunate occurrence at Dartmoor prison, and the
measures which had been taken by agreement between him
and Messrs. Clay and Gallatin on that occasion. I said I
had received a copy of the report made by Mr. King and
Mr. Larpent after their examination into the transaction,
and of the written depositions which had been taken as well
on that examination as previously at the Coroner's inquest.1
That after what had been done I considered the procedure
as so far terminated that I was not aware of any further step
to be taken by me until I should receive the instructions of
my government on the case. From the general impres-
sion on my mind by the evidence that I had perused, I re-
gretted that a regular trial of Captain Shortland had not been
ordered, and I thought it probable that such would be the
opinion of my government. He said that undoubtedly there
were cases in which a trial was the best remedy to be resorted
to, but there were others in which it was the worst; that a
trial, the result of which should be an acquittal, would place
the whole affair in a more unpleasant situation than it
1 See Charles King to Rufus King, August 14, 1815, in Life and Correspondence 0}
Rufus King, V. 483. The report of King and Francis Seymore Larpent is in the
Boston Patriot, July 22, 1815.
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
uld be without it; that the evidence was extremely con-
tradictory; that it had been found impossible to trace to
any individual the most unjustifiable part of the firing, and
that Captain Shortland denied having given the order to fire.
I admitted that the evidence was contradictory, but said
that from the impression of the whole mass of it upon me,
I could not doubt, either that Captain Shortland gave the
order to fire, or that under the circumstances of the case it
was unnecessary. It was true the result of a trial might be
an acquittal, but as it was the regular remedy for a case of
this description, the substitution of any other was suscepti-
ble of strong objections, and left the officer apparently justi-
fied, where I could not but consider his conduct as altogether
unjustifiable.
I mentioned the earnest desire of the American govern-
ment for the full execution of the stipulations in the treaty
of Ghent, and that my instructions had expressed the hope
of an appointment as soon as possible of the commissioners
on the part of this country for proceeding to the settlement
of the boundaries. He asked what would be the most con-
venient season of the year for transacting this business. I
said I believed it might be done at any season, but, as the
line would be in a high northern latitude, the summer season
would probably be most for the personal convenience of the
commissioners. He said the appointments would be made
with reference to that consideration.
I further observed that the British Admiral stationed in
the Chesapeake had declined restoring slaves that he had
taken, under a construction of the first article of the treaty
which the government of the United States considered er-
1- meous, and which I presumed this government would like-
wise so consider; that a reference to the original draft of the
British projet, and to an alteration proposed by us and as-
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 323
sented to by the British plenipotentiaries, would immediately
show the incorrectness of this construction.
He said he thought it would be best to refer this matter
to the gentlemen who were authorized to confer with us on
the subject of a treaty of commerce.
He asked me if Mr. Clay and Mr. Gallatin had communi-
cated to me what had passed between them and this govern-
ment on that head. I said they had. After inquiring
whether I was joined in that commission, he said that the
same person had been appointed to treat with us who had
concluded with us the treaty of Ghent, and that Mr. Robin-
son,1 the Vice President of the Board of Trade, had been
added to them. They had already had some conferences
with Messrs. Clay and Gallatin, and their powers were now
made out and ready for them to proceed in the negotiation.
On the 6th instant I received from Lord Castlereagh a
note, informing me that the Prince Regent had appointed
the Hon. Charles Bagot his Envoy Extraordinary and
Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States.2 He was
presented to the Prince upon his appointment at the levee
on the same day that I had presented my credentials — a
circumstance which was remarked by the Prince himself,
doubtless with the intention that it should be understood
as an evidence of the promptitude with which the British
government was disposed to meet the friendly advances of
our own. In delivering my credential letter to the Prince
at the private audience previous to the levee, I had told him
that I fulfilled the commands of my government in express-
ing the hope that it would be received as a token of the
earnest desire of the President not only for the faithful and
1 Frederick John Robinson, afterwards Earl of Ripon (1782-1859).
2 Some of his correspondence is used in Bagot, George Canning and his Friends
(1909).
324 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
punctual observance of all our engagements contracted with
Great Britain, but for the adoption of every other measure
which might tend to consolidate the peace and friendship
and to promote the harmony between the two nations.
The Prince answered me by the most explicit assurances
of the friendly disposition of this government towards the
United States, and of his own determination punctually to
carry into execution all the engagements on the part of
Great Britain.
I was requested by Morier,1 one of the Under Secretaries
of State in the foreign department, to call at that office the
day after the levee. I complied with that request. He in-
quired whether I thought there would be any objection on
your part to the appointment of the same person as the
British commissioner on the fourth and fifth articles of the
treaty of Ghent. I said I did not anticipate any objection,
especially as we should be under no obligation to appoint
the same person upon the two commissions on our part.
He told me that Colonel Barclay,2 having already been em-
ployed on the commission under the treaty of 1794, would
be the commissioner on those two articles and would be
attended by the same person who was also on that occasion
employed as the surveyor. It was intended that they should
go out in the July packet. Another person would be ap-
pointed the commissioner on the sixth article.
I have etc.
1 John Philip Morier (1776-1853).
' Thomas Barclay (1753-1830). Rives, Letters of Thomas Barclay.
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 325
TO WILLEM AND JAN WILLINK
London, ii July, 1815.
Gentlemen :
I duly received your favor of 27th June, enclosing a copy
of your letter to Messrs. Gallatin and Bayard of 14 December
last. As it was impossible for me to accept the proposal of
selling 75 @ j6 per cent at Amsterdam, certificates of stocks
which were even then at 91 here, I did not think it advisable
immediately to answer your letter. Since then I have re-
ceived further instructions from the Secretary of the Treas-
ury, authorizing the sale at the market price in London of
a certain portion of the stock. But on the very day that I
received your letter the exchange which you quote at 9/. 10.
to the £ sterling had risen to 10, and it has since been at
10/. 10. At the same time the price of American stock in
this market has risen to 92 and 93, as by the latest accounts
from the United States they were rapidly rising there. The
Secretary of the Treasury has informed Messrs. Baring and
Co. that he has authorized you to draw upon them for the
sum necessary to discharge the interest payable in Holland
on the first of this month upon the Louisiana loan. And
Mr. Baring assures me that your bills for that effect shall
be duly paid. To reimburse them it may be necessary to
ask of you a power for transferring so much of the stock
standing in your names as may be sufficient for that purpose.
But as they may, perhaps, undertake the sale of the whole,
the instructions for which still remain in force, I shall in
that case ask your power for the transfer of the whole. I
shall for this and other reasons postpone transmitting to the
Secretary of the Treasury the proposals contained in your
letter which I am now answering. It would certainly occa-
326 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
sion some surprise to him that you should in the present
circumstances of the United States, not be able to procure
money for them upon more favorable terms, than you could
have obtained immediately before the conclusion of the
peace at Ghent. It is precisely at the moment of embarrass-
ment which cannot be derived from your extensive credit
and your confidence in the stability and resources of the
United States.
I am etc.
TO CHRISTOPHER HUGHES
London, 18 July, 1815.
My Dear Sir:
A few days after my arrival in this city I received your
obliging favor of the 7 May, which was forwarded to me by
Mr. White from Falmouth. I was very much gratified by
your friendly recollection, and assure you that I retain and
shall retain with lively pleasure the remembrance of the
cheerfulness and animation which you mingled in the cup
of our political bitterness and dullness at Ghent. I had
learned, with sympathetic feelings for you, the unexpected
detention which you experienced at Bordeaux and in the
waters of the Garonne, and am happy to find that you sup-
ported with philosophical composure the disappointment of
having been anticipated in the communication of the news
of peace to our beloved country.
The elements of the American legation at Ghent are now
rathc-r singularly dispersed through the world. Mr. Bayard
and Colonel Milligan sailed in the Neptune (no longer Nep-
tune the foul) from Plymouth on the 18 of last month, and
will I trust ere this have performed the largest part of their
v >yage to the United States. Mr. Crawford went with them,
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 327
but Mr. Bayard was laboring under so distressing an illness
that it is doubtful whether he will ever recover, or even sur-
vive the passage. Mr. Clay and Mr. Gallatin, with his son,
left this town last week for Liverpool, there to embark for
the United States. They have been, with a poor mite of
assistance from me, working here upon a commercial con-
vention in which we have stood in great need of the "fly on
the coach wheel" — that is, of the secretary to the commission.
If he had been here, we should have given him employment
to his heart's content, if not more. And after all we found
it possible to come to agreement only upon five articles, three
of which were surplusage — and only for four years. The
B[ritish] p[lenipotentiarie]s were our old friends, Mr. Goul-
burn and Mr. Adams, together with Mr. Robinson, the
Vice President of the Board of Trade, instead of Lord Gam-
bier; and, by the way, I ought to tell you that Mr. Goulburn
retains his old regard for the American secretary and always
inquires kindly after him.
Mr. Russell spent about four months in Paris after the
conclusion of the business at Ghent and then repaired to his
post at Stockholm. I have heard of him, but not from him,
since his arrival there. He left his son George at Paris.
Mr. Todd lost his passage in the Neptune, first from Havre
and afterwards from Plymouth. He goes home from Liver-
pool, I suppose with Messrs. Clay and Gallatin. They were
to sail last Friday or Saturday in the ship Lorenzo for New
York.
I received a few days since a letter from Mr. Shaler and
Commodore Decatur, dated United States ship Guerriere,
off Cadiz, 13 June, 181 5, announcing their appointment as
commissioners to negotiate a peace with the Dey of Algiers.
Two days afterwards I learnt by the Courier, that to com-
mence the negotiation they had taken into Carthagena one
328 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
Algerine frigate, destroyed another, and were in close pursuit
of a third. What part Shaler performed in this specimen
of diplomatic skill I have not learned, but like you I am
fectly satisfied that he did his duty very well. How the
Dey will be disposed to receive such overtures I am quite
curious to learn. At least he will not have occasion to ques-
tion the sufficiency of the full powers of the commissioners.
Mr. Canning once sported some very good jokes upon the
administration of this country for sending out to America
an Admiral for a plenipotentiary, but our government have
ordered these things better. As they have taken the Alger-
ines in hand in the only proper manner, I hope they have
secured to our country the honor of breaking up the whole
of that nest of pirates on the shores of Africa, which have
so long been the annoyance and disgrace of the maritime
powers of Europe.
TO WILLIAM EUSTIS x
London, 25 July, 1815.
Dear Sir:
It was Mr. Bayard's opinion that the operation of the
1 race would be to promote the triumph of the Federal party
in our country generally, and in particular at the next presi-
dential election. I had myself no distant foresight of its
effect upon our parties. Hitherto the appearances indicate
onh that it has calmed their effervescence, without ap-
proximating their views or much affecting their relative
1 Minister to The Hague. He arrived in the Congress on July 12 at Flushing,
and on the 15th at The Hague.
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 329
strength. Perhaps this is precisely the best effect that could
have been produced. When both parties shall have cooled
down to a temperate condition, the proper time will come
for both to review their principles, and for the wise and
honest men of both to discard their prejudices and turn the
experience of the war to the benefit of their common country.
The greatest vice of our leading men on both sides is their
load of prejudices against each other. The war has not in
truth answered the expectations or the hopes of either. The
peace has not disgraced our country, but it has not secured
the objects of the war. The events of the last three years
have been marked with the ordinary vicissitudes of war.
They have covered sometimes our nation with shame and
sometimes with glory. On the ocean our cause has been
brilliant almost without exception. But its highest honor is
but the promise of future greatness. On the land, but for
Plattsburg and New Orleans, what would be our military
fame? Erie, Chippewa, and Bridgewater would not have
redeemed it. If we judge ourselves with salutary rigor, is it
yet redeemed? As to our beloved native New England, I
blush to think of the part she has performed, for her shame
is still the disgrace of the nation — faction for patriotism,
a whining hypocrisy for political morals, dismemberment
for union, and prostitution to the enemy for state sover-
eignty. You tell me they are ashamed of it themselves.
I rejoice to hear it. As a true New England man and Amer-
ican I feel the infection of their shame, while I abhor the
acts by which they have brought it upon us.
I am etc.
33o THE WRITINGS OF [i8iS
TO ALEXANDER HILL EVERETT
London, 27 July, 181 5.
Dear Sir:
Your favors by Mr. Dana, by the two Mr. Whites, and
by your brother, had been received by me since my arrival
here, and I had been apprehensive that your voyage would
still be postponed, so that yours of the 17 from the Hague
would have been an unexpected pleasure, but for the previous
arrival at Liverpool of the Panther, one of whose passengers
informed me that she had sailed from Boston the same day
with the Congress.
I congratulate you upon your introduction to the regular
diplomatic career.1 When Mr. Smith had concluded last
summer to return to the United States, I wrote to the Secre-
tary of State requesting that, if I was to return to Russia,
you might be appointed secretary to that legation. As
there was then no prospect that the negotiation at Ghent
would terminate in peace, and consequently none of a mis-
sion to this country, I merely added that if such a mission
had been the result of the negotiation, and confided to me,
as I had received notice was the President's intention, I
should still have requested that you might have been the
secretary to the legation. That my recommendation of you
was earnest I now the more readily avow, because I gave by
it a large pledge to the government of our country, which it
is for you to redeem, and I assured the Secretary of State
that in presenting you to the President's consideration, I
was governed more by motives of zeal for the public service
than of personal friendship for you. My sentiments are
still the same. For my own satisfaction and for the pleasure
of your society I wish that you had received the appoint-
1 Secretary of legation at The Hague.
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 331
ment as secretary to this legation. I shall write to the Secre-
tary of State and renew the request that you may be ap-
pointed to it. But for the public service and for your own
advantage, you are for the present at least, perhaps as well,
perhaps better, situated than you would be here. My own
residence here will very probably be short; every American
who has resided so long as five or six years in Europe ought
to go home to be new tempered. I recommend this to your
future practice, as during my whole life I have found the
benefit and necessity of it for my own. At an earlier and
more perilous age you have once passed unhurt through the
ordeal of European seductions and corruptions. I have the
confident hope that one victory will be the earnest of another.
But you will not deem it impertinent if I entreat you "to
keep your heart with all diligence." The fascinations of
Europe to Americans, situated as you are and may hereafter
be, present themselves in various and most dissimilar forms —
sensuality, dissipation, indolence, pride, and, last and most
despicable but not least, avarice. This tho' not so common as
the rest is not less dangerous and not less to be avoided. It
appears in temptations to trading, speculation, or stock-
jobbing upon the basis of information to which your public
station only gives you access. Perhaps you may not be
exposed to this species of allurement, and if you should, I
am sure you need no warning voice to preserve you from it.
I have many very pleasing recollections of the country and
particularly of the spot where you reside. I inhabited The
Hague at several different, and always at interesting periods
of my life. You will find it necessary to be particularly at-
tentive to your health, as foreigners who reside some time
in Holland are often subject to attacks of intermittent fevers.
The Hague is however more favorably situated than Am-
sterdam.
332 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
You will oblige me by inquiring if a family by the name
of Veerman Saint Serf now reside at The Hague, and if they
do, by calling on them with my compliments and kind re-
membrance. The lady is a daughter of a Mr. Dumas, who
during the war of our Revolution was agent for the United
States at The Hague, and after the war was for some time
charge d'affaires when I was last at The Hague from 1794 to
1797. She was married to this Mr. Veerman and had two
or three children. I passed through The Hague last summer
on my way to Ghent, but could not stop even to alight from
the carriage. I have not heard from this family for many
years, but it would give me great pleasure to be informed of
them and especially of their welfare.
Mr. Buchanan 1 does me the favor to take charge of this
letter. He is strongly recommended to me by several
highly respected friends, and I am persuaded you will find
him an agreeable associate. Let me hear often from you and
believe me etc.
TO LEVETT HARRIS
London, 28 July, 1815.
Dear Sir:
I have received a letter from Mr. William Cutting of New
York, as the executor of the will of the late Mr. Fulton, and
written at the particular request of his widow, expressing
the hope that the privilege granted by the Emperor of
Russia to him for the construction of steamboats in the
Russian Empire may be confirmed for the benefit of his
family. They had received after the decease of Mr. Fulton
my letter to him of the 25 December last, written in conse-
1 William Boyd Buchanan.
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 333
quence of one that I had received from you and stating the
danger that the privilege might be forfeited, if the model
and specification should not be forwarded in time to prevent
it. Mr. Cutting says that Mrs. Fulton is quite sure that her
husband must have sent out the necessary drawings and
specification; but that from the embarrassments then at-
tending the intercourse between the two countries and the
circuitous route of communication, it was more than proba-
ble that those documents had miscarried. That Mr. Fulton
had, however, prepared duplicates which were doubtless in-
tended to be transmitted by the first opportunity, and which
Mr. Cutting promises would be forwarded by the next vessel
that should sail from New York to Russia after the date of
his letter, which was the 18 April.
I hope that they will have been received by the Minister
of the Interior before this letter reaches you, and that these
circumstances will acquit altogether Mr. Fulton of any neg-
lect on his part in the performance of anything required of
him by the Emperor's ukase. I also hope that the privilege
(which by the words of the ukase was a complete and positive
grant) will without difficulty be confirmed for the benefit
of his family. Mr. Fulton was a man who deserved so well
of our country and of mankind that I should feel a regret,
if this misfortune of his death should be aggravated to his
family by the loss of that reward which the munificent spirit
of the Emperor Alexander had secured to him. Mr. Cutting
says that on the confirmation of the ukase immediate meas-
ures will be taken to send out an engineer and workmen to
construct a boat, and that he may perhaps go himself to
superintend the whole, until the system shall be properly
organized. I have written to Mr. Cutting urging him at all
events to go, and I am persuaded it will yet be in his power
to get the first boat in operation within the three years al-
334
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
lowed to Mr. Fulton by the Emperor's ukase. Should he
arrive at St. Petersburg I pray you to give him every assist-
ance in your power to promote his success, and particularly
to obtain the interest of Count RomanzorT in his favor. It
was through the Count's means that the privilege was ob-
tained, and he knows that it could not without injustice be
taken away. . . .
TO LORD CASTLEREAGH
9 August, 1815.1
My Lord:
In two several conferences with your Lordship I have had
the honor of mentioning the refusal of His Majesty's naval
commanders, who at the restoration of peace between the
United States and Great Britain were stationed on the Amer-
ican coast, to restore the slaves taken by them from their
owners in the United States during the war and then in
their possession, notwithstanding the stipulation in the first
article of the treaty of Ghent that such slaves should not be
carried away.
Presuming that you are in possession of the correspond-
ence on this subject which has passed between the Secretary
of State of the United States and Mr. Baker, it will be un-
necessary for me to repeat the demonstration that the carry-
ing away of these slaves is incompatible with the terms of the
treaty. But as a reference to the documents of the negotia-
tion at Ghent may serve to elucidate the intentions of the
contracting parties, I am induced to present them to your
consideration, in the hope that the Minister of His Majesty
now about to depart for the United States may be authorized
1 See Adams, Memoirs, August 8, 1814.
1815] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 335
to direct the restitution of the slaves conformably to the
treaty, or to provide for the payment of the value of those
carried away contrary to that stipulation which, in the
event of their not being restored, I am instructed by my
government to claim. The first projet of the treaty of Ghent
was offered by the American plenipotentiaries, and that part
of the first article relating to slaves was therein expressed
in the following manner:
All territory, places, and possessions, without exception, taken
by either party from the other during the war, or which may be
taken after the signing of this treaty, shall be restored without
delay, and without causing any destruction or carrying away any
artillery, or other public property, or any slaves or other private
property.
This projet was returned by the British plenipotentiaries
with the proposal of several alterations, and among the rest
in this part of the first article, which they proposed should
be so changed as to read thus:
All territory, places, and possessions, without exception, be-
longing to either party and taken by the other during the war,
or which may be taken after the signing of this treaty, shall be
restored without delay, and without causing any destruction, or
carrying away any of the artillery, or other public property, or
any slaves or other private property, originally captured in the
said forts or places, and which shall remain therein upon the
exchange of the ratification of this treaty.
It will be observed that in this proposal the words "origi-
nally captured in the said forts or places, and which shall
remain therein upon the exchange of the ratifications of this
treaty" operated as a modification of the article as originally
336 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
proposed in the American projet. Instead of stipulating
that no property, public or private, artillery or slaves, should
be carried away, they limited the prohibition of removal to
all such property as had been originally captured in the forts
and places, and should remain there at the exchange of the
ratifications. They included within the limitation private
as well as public property, and had the article been assented
to in this form by the American plenipotentiaries and ratified
by their government, it would have warranted the construc-
tion which the British commanders have given to the article
as it was ultimately agreed to, and which it cannot admit.
For, by reference to the protocol of conference held on the
1 December, 18 14, there will be found among the alterations
to the amended projet proposed by the American plenipo-
tentiaries the following:
Transpose alteration consisting of the words originally captured
in the said forts or places, and zvhich shall remain therein upon the
exchange of the ratifications of this treaty, after the words public
property.
Agreed to by the British plenipotentiaries.
It thus appears that the American plenipotentiaries ad-
mitted with regard to artillery and public property the
limitation which was proposed by the British amended
projet, but that they did not assent to it with regard to
slaves and private property; that on the contrary they asked
such a transposition of the words of limitation as would leave
them applicable only to artillery and public property, and
would except slaves and private property from their opera-
tion altogether. That the British plenipotentiaries and
government, by this proposed transposition of the words,
had full notice of the views of the other contracting party
in adhering to the generality of the prohibition to carry
isisl JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 337
away slaves and private property, while acquiescing in a
limitation with respect to artillery and public property.
With this notice the British government agreed to the trans-
position of the words, and accordingly that part of the article
as ratified by both governments now stands thus:
All territory, places and possessions whatsoever, taken by
either party from the other during the war, or which may be taken
after the signing of this treaty, excepting only the islands herein-
after mentioned, shall be restored without delay, and without
causing any destruction or carrying away any of the artillery or
other public property originally captured in the said forts or places,
and which shall remain therein upon the exchange of the ratifica-
tions of this treaty, or any slaves or other private property.
From this review of the stipulation as originally proposed
at the negotiation of Ghent, as subsequently modified by
the proposals of the respective plenipotentiaries, and as
finally agreed to by both the contracting parties, I trust it
will remain evident that in evacuating all places within the
jurisdiction of the United States, and in departing from their
waters, the British commanders were bound not to carry
away any slaves or other private property of the citizens of
the United States which had been taken upon their shores.
Had the construction of the article itself been in any degree
equivocal, this statement of the manner in which it was
drawn up would have sufficed to solve every doubt of its
meaning. It would also show that the British plenipoten-
tiaries were not unaware of its purport as understood by
those of the United States.
I deem it also my duty, previous to the departure of
Mr. Bagot, to request the attention of His Majesty's govern-
ment to another point, upon which the execution of the same
article of the treaty of Ghent had suffered a delay on many
338 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
accounts to be regretted. From the moment of the ratifica-
tion of the treaty it became an object of earnest solicitude
to the American government, to carry into execution with
the most entire good faith every engagement contracted on
the part of the United States by the treaty. Orders were
immediately given for the restoration of that part of Upper
Canada which was in the occupation of the American troops;
proper steps were taken for concluding treaties of peace with
the Indian tribes with whom the United States were then
at war, and other measures were adopted corresponding with
the pacific relations happily restored between the two coun-
tries. At the date of the latest dispatches which I have re-
ceived from the government of the United States, the fort
of Michillimackinac had not been evacuated by the British
troops. The consequences of the delay which had occurred
in the delivery of that place were of no small importance to
the United States. Independent of the loss of the trade with
the Indians within the limits of the United States for the
present year, the detention of that place had a tendency to
induce the Indians inhabiting the country on the Mississippi
and the Missouri to persevere in hostility against the United
States. This result was apprehended by the American
government, and early in the month of May communicated
to Mr. Baker with an offer to facilitate the removal of the
British garrison to Maiden. Although Mr. Baker did not
think himself authorized to accept this offer, I indulge the
persuasion that means have ere this been found to effect
that removal; though by public accounts in the American
gazettes I lament to see that the dangers anticipated from
the continued atrocious warfare of the savages have been
too painfully realized. Under these circumstances I must
earnestly renew the expression of the hope that orders have
been, or will be immediately issued for the restoration of
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 339
that post without further delay. I pray your lordship to
accept etc.
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 9. [James Monroe]
London, 15 August, 181 5.
Sir:
• ••••••
I have received a letter from Mr. Robert Montgomery of
Alicant, dated nth July, stating that on the 4th of that
month a treaty of peace was concluded between the United
States and the Dey and Regency of Algiers. Other accounts
have been received confirmative of this and of the conditions
of the treaty specified in Mr. Montgomery's letter. Their
general impression upon the Americans here has not been
equal to the hopes which the splendid victory of Commodore
Decatur upon his entrance into the Mediterranean had ex-
cited. The restoration of the Algerine ships of war and pris-
oners is thought to be far more than a compensation for the
American vessels and prisoners to be restored in return; and
although the entire liberation from all future tribute is
acknowledged to be highly honorable to the United States,
it is apprehended that it will render the continuance of the
peace more precarious even than it has been, when the Dey
had at least a motive for abiding by his engagements. Hav-
ing no official information of this event I am not prepared
to encounter the objections suggested against the measure;
but I can not forbear to express the hope that if the peace
should be ratified, it will be followed by some more effectual
security for the protection of the American commerce in
34o THE WRITINGS OF [1815
the Mediterranean than the faith of a Dey of Algiers to
observe a treaty without a tribute.
I am etc.
TO FRANCIS FREELING *
Little Ealing, 15 August, 18 15.
Sir:
I have the honor to inclose herewith a paper this day re-
ceived by me bearing your printed signature and covering
two letters from me which had been broken open.
I request you to return it to me, with information whether
it was by you, or by your authority, directed to me with the
addition of American Consul.
I am etc.
TO G. H. FREELING 2
Little Ealing, 17 August, 18 15.
Sir:
I have had the honor of receiving your letter of yesterday,
returning the paper which had been improperly directed to
me by the clerk in the "Returned Letter Office." I am
willing to accept the apology which you are pleased to offer
for him, of having been ignorant of my public station, and
from the three et ceteras, both in the direction and super-
scription of your letter to me, I also infer that you are also
uninformed of it. I am, therefore, under the necessity of
acquainting you that the character in which I have had the
honor of being received by His Royal Highness The Prince
Regent and announced in the Gazette, is that of "Envoy
1 Secretary to the General Post Office.
1 Assistant Secretary to the General Post Office.
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 341
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from the
United States of America." With a view to secure to my
correspondence, which might pass at the British post offices,
the protection and rights to which it is entitled by the usages
of civilised nations, I gave notice of my public character
personally at the general post office, and in a letter to Francis
Freeling, Esqr., the Secretary, dated on the 31st ultimo,
designated myself as Minister from the United States. But
having perceived, not only by the manner in which my let-
ters, broken open at the Post Office, were returned to me,
but on another occasion upon which I have spoken to
Lord Liverpool, that it was necessary to renew this notice
of my official station, I now do it, adding only the remark
that the ignorance of the clerk in the Returned Letter Office
was the more extraordinary, as it happened that in one of
the two letters of mine which he returned to me broken open,
my public character was stated at full length.
I am etc.
TO R. G. BEASLEY
Ealing, 20th August, 18 15.
Dear Sir:
Thomas Nelson, a black American seaman in distress,
to whom at my request you gave a protection, after repeated
and unavailing attempts to obtain a passage from London
to the United States, made an effort to go to Liverpool in
the hopes of being there more successful. I inclose you a
letter from him, by which you will see he is in jail at St.
Albans on the suspicion that his papers are forged and that
they have been taken from him. If you can relieve him
from this situation, I pray you to do it. I have the fullest
conviction that this man is no impostor, and that he was
342 THE WRITINGS OF [i8i5
improperly left by his captain at Havre. He is one of many
Americans by whom my doors are incessantly besieged, who
can neither obtain passages home nor the means of subsist-
ence by employment here. I have no doubt that the paying
off and reduction of the fleet in this country will bring mul-
titudes more of these unfortunate people upon us. I do not
mean of impostors (whom I have seldom found it difficult
upon examination to detect), but of real Americans more
sinned against than sinning. I can neither turn them from
my doors, nor afford them the relief which they so eminently
need. Numbers of them were prisoners of war and have been
sent here from the East and West Indies, Quebec, Halifax,
etc.; some impressed into the British service, though pris-
oners, and now discharged as invalids, as unserviceable, and
even as Americans; some of them have invalid pensions of
six or seven pounds, which for want of more formal papers
they are unable to sell as they would wish even for two years
purchase, for the sake of getting home again to their country.
Are there American vessels enough at the port of London
by which they can legally be sent home? And if not is there
no other means of relieving them? To return to poor Nelson,
I suppose a certificate to the Mayor of St. Albans that he has
a protection from you will obtain his release from prison.
As to asking relief for him, I believe it would be better to
send it.
I am etc.1
1 "The maritime war, which has rather been threatened than actually renewed,
presented a few other cases of impressment by British officers of American seamen,
besides that of which you so justly complain. At present the inconvenience ex-
perienced by this government is of having more sailors upon their hands than they
wish to employ, and many Americans obtain their discharge, who had been for
years before asking for it in vain. Numbers of them are without protections, or
any positive evidence upon which they could demand them, and in such cases I
have found it necessary to relax from the rigor of the rule which you have observed.
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 343
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 10. [James Monroe]
London, 22 August, 181 5.
Sir:
The subjects upon which I was induced to request an inter-
view with the Earl of Liverpool were not confined to those
upon which I had been favored with your instructions. I
was desirous of ascertaining the intentions of the British gov-
ernment with regard to the period of time when the mutual
abolition of the discriminating duties would take place. I
had been informed by American merchants here that the
extra duty of two pence sterling per pound upon cotton im-
ported in American vessels, mentioned in the joint dispatch
to you of 3 July last, had been and continued to be levied,
although the act of Parliament by which it was raised as an
extra duty had begun to operate only from two days after the
signature of the convention. I took with me and left with
Lord Liverpool copies of the act of Congress of 3 March last,
concerning the repeal of the discriminating duties, and of the
fifth article of the commercial convention. It was my opin-
ion, and I told him I had so given it to the merchants who had
asked me when the convention would take effect, that when
ratified by both parties and the ratifications exchanged, its
I have had applications both from real Americans and from impostors under these
circumstances, and I have found no difficulty in discerning the genuine from the
spurious. Whenever I am satisfied by personal examination and inquiry that they
are my countrymen, I ask of Mr. Beasley without hesitation a protection for them.
The evils to which a true American sailor is exposed for the want of a mere official
document are too numerous to leave him destitute of the document when there is
bona fide no reasonable doubt of his being entitled to it." To Samuel Hazard,
10 August, 1815. Ms.
544
THE WRITINGS OF [iSiS
operation would be from the date of the signature, and that
the government would be bound to refund any extra duties
collected in the interval. He said that was unusual, which
I admitted, observing that it was the unequivocal import of
the words in which the article was drawn up. They deviated
from the usual form of such articles, and the deviation was
made at the proposal of the British plenipotentiaries, our
projet having proposed that the convention should take ef-
fect as usual from the exchange of the ratifications. They
had chosen to say that though binding only when the ratifica-
tions should be exchanged, yet it should then be binding for
four years from the date of the signature. We had agreed to
this alteration, and when the convention should be once rati-
fied in the United States, any individual affected by it would
be entitled to the benefit of a construction of its purport
by the judicial authorities. He said it was the same here, and
asked me if I had spoken on the subject to Mr. Robinson, the
Vice President of the Board of Trade. I answered that I had,
some weeks since, but Mr. Robinson had not then formed
a decisive opinion upon the purport of the article. I added
that when the convention was signed, we had understood
from the British plenipotentiaries, and particularly from Mr.
Robinson, that this extra duty upon cotton imported in our
vessels would not be permitted to commence; that it would
have been immediately removed by an Order in Council,
which until the exchange of ratifications would stand instead
of the convention. At all events, however, it was material
to know what the construction of the article by this govern-
ment would be as the operation in either case must be recip-
rocal. If it was understood here that the revocation of the
discriminating duties would commence only from the ex-
change of the ratifications, the same principle must be ob-
served in the United States, with which he fully agreed. He
i8i51 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 345
said they had taken an act of Parliament to enable the king
in Council to regulate the trade with America, as had been
done for some years after the peace of 1783. An Order of
Council was to have been made out in consequence of the
treaty. It had been for some time accidentally delayed,
but might perhaps be ready to be signed at the Council to
be held the next day. It was the disposition here to put all
the amicable and conciliatory arrangements into operation
as soon as possible, and the discriminating duties might be
immediately removed, in the confidence that the same meas-
ures would be adopted on the part of the United States.
I told him that Great Britain had already a pledge of that
reciprocity by the act of Congress of the last session, so that
the revocation might be accomplished at the pleasure of this
government, even independent of the stipulation in the
treaty.
Before we passed to another subject Lord Liverpool said
that he thought it proper to mention to me that a note would
be sent to Mr. Baker previous to the ratification of the con-
vention respecting the island of St. Helena. That by a
general agreement among the allies Bonaparte was to be
transferred to be kept under custody in that island, and by
a general regulation the ships of all nations, excepting those
of their own East India Company, would be excluded from
it. The circumstance which had led to the necessity of this
measure had not been in contemplation when the conven-
tion was signed, and the measure itself would not be ex-
tended beyond the necessity by which it was occasioned.
That it was authorized by the precedent of the convention
which had been signed by Mr. King and himself in 1803,
and which the American government had proposed to modify
on the consideration that a subsequent treaty, containing
the cession of Louisiana to the United States, had altered
346 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
the situation of the parties, although unknown both to
Air. King and to him when they signed the convention.
And that as the Cape of Good Hope would still be left for
American vessels to touch at, he presumed the island of
St. Helena would not be necessary to them for that purpose.
I said I did not know that the stipulation with regard to the
island of St. Helena was in itself of very material importance,
but the American government might consider the principle
as important. The stipulation was in express and positive
terms and the island of St. Helena was identically named.
The case referred to by him did not appear to me to apply
as a precedent for two reasons. One was that the Louisiana
convention had been signed before, and not as he thought
after that signed by him and Mr. King, though it was true
that neither he nor Mr. King knew that it has been signed.
The other was that Great Britian had declined ratifying that
convention upon the ground of the modification to it pro-
posed by the American government in consequence of the
change produced by the Louisiana convention. He said
that at all events Mr. Baker would be instructed to present
such a note, previous to the ratification by the American
government. He had thought best to give me notice of it.
Referring then to the contents of my letter of the 9th in-
stant to Lord Castlereagh which he had seen, I told him that
having expected Mr. Bagot was on the eve of his departure,
I had been anxious that he might go provided with instruc-
tions which might give satisfaction to the government of the
United States with regard to the execution of two very im-
portant stipulations in the treaty of Ghent. He said that
as to the surrender of Michillimackinac there could be no sort
of difficulty. The orders for its evacuation had been long
since given. It was merely the want of barracks for their
troops that had occasioned a momentary delay, and he had
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 347
no doubt the fort had been before this delivered up. There
never had been for a moment the intention on the part of
the British government to retain any place which they had
stipulated to restore. But with respect to the slaves they
certainly construed very differently from the American
government the stipulation relating to them. They thought
that applied only to the slaves in the forts and places, which
having been taken during the war were to be restored at
the peace. I said that independent of the construction of
the sentence which so strongly marked the distinction be-
tween the artillery and public property, and slaves and pri-
vate property, the process by which the article had been
[framed] demonstrated beyond all question that a distinc-
tion between them was intended and understood by both
parties. The first projet of the treaty had been presented
by us. This had been required and even insisted upon by
the British plenipotentiaries. The article was therefore
drawn up by us, and our intention certainly was to secure
the restoration both of the public and private property, in-
cluding slaves which had been in any manner captured on
shore during the war. The projet was returned to us with a
limitation upon the restoration of property, whether public
or private, to such as had been in the places when captured,
and should remain there at the time of the evacuation. We
assented to this so far as artillery and public property, which
by the usages of war is liable to be taken and removed, but
not with regard to private property and slaves, which we
thought should at all events be restored because they ought
never to be taken. We therefore proposed the transposition
of the words as stated in my letter to Lord Castlereagh.
The construction upon which the British commanders have
carried away the slaves would annul the whole effect of the
transposition of the words. Artillery and public property
348
THE WRITINGS OF [i8iS
had of course been found, and could therefore be restored
almost or quite exclusively in the forts or places occupied by-
troops. But there was not perhaps a slave to carry away
in all those which were occupied by the British when the
treaty was concluded, and to confine the stipulation relating
to slaves within the same limits as those agreed to with re-
gard to public property would reduce them to a dead letter.
He said that perhaps the British plenipotentiaries had agreed
to the transposition of the words there at Ghent without
referring to the government here, and that although the
intentions of the parties might be developed by reference
to the course of the negotiations, yet the ultimate construc-
tion must be upon the words of the treaty as they stood.
He would see Mr. Goulburn and inquire of him how they
understood this transposition; but certainly for himself,
and he could speak for the whole government here, he had
considered them as only promising not to carry slaves from
the places which were occupied by their forces and which
they were to evacuate. There were perhaps few or no slaves
in the places then occupied by them, but there was a proba-
bility at the time when the treaty was signed that New
Orleans and other parts of the Southern States might be in
their possession at the time of the exchange of the ratifica-
tions. If they had understood the words to imply that per-
sons who from whatever motive had taken refuge under the
protection of the British forces should be delivered up to
those who, to say the least, must feel unkindly towards them
and might treat them harshly, they should have objected
to it. Something also, he could not say what, would have
been proposed. I said I had referred to the progress of the
negotiation and the protocol of conferences only as confirm-
ing what I thought the evident purport of the words of the
treaty. To speak in perfect candor I would not undertake
i8i51 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 349
to say that the British plenipotentiaries had taken a view
of the subject different from that of their government.
But certainly we had drawn up the article without any antic-
ipation that New Orleans, or southern ports not then in their
possession, would at the ratification of the treaty be occupied
by them. Our intentions were to provide that no slaves
should be carried away. We had no thought of disguising
or concealing those intentions. Had the British plenipoten-
tiaries asked of us an explanation of our proposal to trans-
pose the words, we should instantly have given it. We evi-
dently had an object in making the proposal, and we thought
the words themselves fully disclosed it. Our object was the
restoration of all property, including slaves, which by the
usages of war among civilized nations ought not to have been
taken. All private property on shore was of that descrip-
tion. It was entitled by the laws of war to exemption from
capture. Slaves were private property. Lord Liverpool
said that he thought they could not be considered precisely
under the general denomination of private property. A
table or chair for instance might be taken and restored with-
out changing its condition; but a living and a human being
was entitled to other considerations. I replied that the
treaty had marked no such distinction. The words implicitly
recognized slaves as private property — in the article alluded
to, "slaves or other private property." Not that I meant to
deny the principle assumed by him. Most certainly a living
sentient being, and still more a human being, was to be re-
garded in a different light from the inanimate matter of
which other private property might consist, and if on the
ground of that difference the British plenipotentiaries had
objected to restore the one while consenting to restore the
other, we should readily have discussed the subject. We
might have accepted or objected to the proposal they would
35o THE WRITINGS OF [1815
have made. But what could that proposal have been?
Upon what ground could Great Britain have refused to
restore them? Was it because they had been seduced away
from their masters by the promises of British officers? But
had they taken New Orleans, or any other Southern city,
would not all the slaves in it have had as much claim to the
benefit of such promises, as the fugitives from their masters
elsewhere? How then could the place, if it had been taken,
have been evacuated according to the treaty, without carry-
ing away any slaves, if the pledge of such promises was to
protect them from being restored to their owners? It was
true, proclamations inviting slaves to desert from their
masters had been issued by British officers. We considered
them as deviations from the usage of war. We believed that
the British government itself would, when the hostile pas-
sions arising from the state of war should subside, consider
them in the same light; that Great Britain would then
be willing to restore the property, or to indemnify the suf-
ferers by its loss. If she felt bound to make good the promises
of her officers to the slaves, she might still be willing to do
an act of justice by compensating the owners of the slaves
for the property which had been irregularly taken from them.
Without entering into a discussion which might have been
at once unprofitable and irritating, she might consider this
engagement only as a promise to pay to the owners of the
slaves the value of those of them which might be carried
away. Lord Liverpool manifested no dissatisfaction at these
remarks, nor did he attempt to justify the proclamation to
which I particularly alluded. I added that there was a
branch of the same subject upon which I had not written to
Lord Castlereagh, because involving considerations of a
very delicate nature. I had thought it might be treated
more confidentially by verbal conferences than by written
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 351
communications which would be liable to publication.
During the war it had been stated in a letter of instructions
from the American Secretary of State to the negotiators
of the Ghent treaty, that some of the slaves enticed from
their masters by promises of freedom from British officers
had afterwards been sold in the West Indies. This letter of
instructions had afterwards been published. "Yes," said
Lord Liverpool, and I believe some explanation of it has
been asked." I said there had; first by the British plenipo-
tentiaries at Ghent, and afterwards by Admiral Cochrane
of the American Secretary of State. He had answered this
last application by a letter to Mr. Baker, which His Lordship
had doubtless seen. But I had been authorized to say that
in making this charge in the midst of the war, the American
government had not expected, and was not desirous, that
it should lead to discussions to be protracted to a time and
in a state of peace. They believed that evidence to substan-
tiate in some degree the charge was obtainable, but would
prefer if the British government wished to obtain it, they
should seek it from other sources, many of which were more
accessible to them than to the government of the United
States. The sales, if made, had been in British possessions
and from British ships. These were of course entirely open
to the investigation of inquiries under British authority.
The proclamations had promised employment in the military
service of Great Britain (which could apply only to men),
or free settlement in the West Indies. But in fact numbers
of women and children had been received and carried away
as well as of men. The numbers of them, and in a very great
degree the identical individuals that had been taken, might
easily be ascertained in the United States, and I expected
to be enabled to furnish accurate lists of them. If not sold,
some provision must have been made for them at the charge
352 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
of the British government itself. It could not be at a loss
to know those whom it had to maintain. And as the whole
subject had a tendency rather to irritation than to the con-
ciliatory spirit which it was the wish of the American govern-
ment to cultivate exclusively, they would prefer superseding
the search and exhibition of evidence through them, and
dropping any further communications as between the govern-
ments relating to it. I concluded, however, by observing
that with this explanation I was directed to say that if the
British government still desired evidence from that of the
United States, they would furnish such as they could collect.
He said that was certainly all that could be asked. The
British officers had universally and very strenuously denied
the charge, which, if true, deserved severe animadversion
and punishment. The British government had believed,
and still believed, the charge to have been without founda-
tion, and in the deficiency of evidence could come to no
other conclusion. . . .
There is little prospect, as it would seem, of our obtaining
any satisfaction with regard to the carrying away of the
slaves. Lord Liverpool did not indeed attempt to support
the construction upon which the naval commanders had
acted in removing those that were on board their ships, but
he insisted that they had never intended to stipulate for
the restoration of those who had sought refuge under their
protection. I therefore thought it indispensable to recur to
the unjustifiable nature of the invitations by which the
slaves had been induced to seek that refuge, and to infer
from it the obligation of Great Britain to restore them or to
indemnify their owners; to show that she was bound to
know the extent of the stipulation to which she had agreed,
and that she could not have proposed an exception founded
upon any promises of her officers to the slaves, when those
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 353
very promises were violations of the laws of war. I also took
the opportunity to propose that with regard to the sale of
some of those people by British officers in the West Indies,
no further discussion might be had as between the govern-
ments. This proposal will, I am convinced, be accepted, if
the evidence mentioned in your dispatch as to be hereafter
transmitted should be conclusive to ascertain the fact. But
the charge has been repeatedly made a subject of Parlia-
mentary inquiry. It has touched a sinew in which the nation
is peculiarly sensitive at this time. You will observe that
Lord Liverpool strongly expressed the disbelief of the fact
of this government, and that disbelief will continue until the
existence of evidence possessed by us to prove it shall be
known. I think it will not then be called for.
I am etc.
TO BENJAMIN WATERHOUSE
Boston House, Ealing, 8 Miles from
Hyde Park corner,
27 August, 18 1 5.
Dear Sir:
In the month of February last, about six weeks after the
signature of the treaty of peace at Ghent, I received at Paris
a letter from you, dated 13 October, 18 14, inclosing a slip
from the Boston Patriot of 12 October, and by its purport
stated to have been forwarded by the Dutch sloop of war
which had taken out to America the minister of that country.
And very lately I have again enjoyed the pleasure of receiv-
ing from you a letter, dated 2 June last, transmitted to me
from The Hague by Dr. Eustis. The parcel of newspapers
to which in the last of these favors you refer as having been
354
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
sent by the former never came to my hands; whether inter-
cepted by the charitable caution of withholding from me
those evil communications which might corrupt my good
manners, as you surmise, or whether accidentally lost upon
their passage, may now be mere harmless matter of conjec-
ture. How it happened, too, that a letter sent by the cor-
vette which arrived in Holland in November should have
failed entirely at that time to reach me at Ghent, and have
been from that time until February in travelling from the
Texel to Paris, I never knew, and probably never shall know.
Certain it is, that when the corvette arrived direct from
Boston after a short passage, I was greatly disappointed
after waiting a week or ten days to remain without a line by
her from any one of my friends or correspondents. Equally
certain is it that your letter, had it then been delivered to
me, would have been a cordial to my own spirits and to
those of all my then colleagues. When I did receive it, I
need not say that it was what your letters can never fail to
be to me, highly acceptable; but the peace was made, the
just and encouraging view of the state of our affairs in rela-
tion to the war was still pleasing, but could no longer serve
the valuable purpose of stimulating us to the same firm and
honorable adherence to the rights of our country in the
cabinet with which they had been maintained in the field
and upon the deep. Among the vices of the party which still
passes among us under the denomination, now insignificant,
of federalists, I have always considered the littleness of their
means and the shortness of their foresight as forming the
most striking contrast to their pretensions of superior and
exclusive talents. To suppose that the men who were
charged with the duty of negotiating peace with Great
Britain would take the Centinel or Evening Post for counsel-
lors in the discharge of their trust, or that they would sub-
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 355
scribe to terms disgraceful to their country, if newspapers of
a different political complexion should be prevented from
reaching them, was to assume a disproportion too great be-
tween the object and the scale by which it was measured.
And when, after the first sine qua non of the British plenipo-
tentiaries was rejected at Ghent, the wiseacres of the Boston
school loaded the columns of their precious newspapers with
reproach upon the American negotiators for rejecting those
fair and generous terms, and with prophecies that we should
be finally compelled to subscribe to them, I do not ask where
the sense of honor and the feeling of patriotism was seated
in the hearts of those who could work up an argument that
such terms could have been submitted to without heavy
sacrifices of national interest and national honor; but I ask
where were their glasses, when they could not look far enough
before them to see the turn, when the cause of their party
might require them to criminate the government for agree-
ing to a peace without any of those degrading conditions.
What a falling off, from an urgent exhortation to an in-
famous peace to a bitter invective upon an honorable one.
Such changes are not indeed too great for your Westphalian
] of party; but they only lead them into the mire.
Governor Strong, I perceive in one of his late speeches,
with his usual force of logic has concluded that because we
did not succeed in the last year in compelling Great Britain
to renounce the practice of impressment from our merchant
vessels on the high seas, therefore we shall have no pretence
for ever attempting to compel her to renounce it hereafter.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
The British government have now more sailors upon their
hands than they know how to employ. They talk of sending
all the foreigners home to their own countries. And bodies
of British seamen starving in the port of London have been
356 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
in procession to the Admiralty and to the Lord Mayor, to
demand that the foreigners should be excluded from the
privilege of shipping on board of English vessels. There is
no danger of impressments for the present, and before the
appearance of a new naval war in Europe I hope the British
government will become sensible of the expediency of aban-
doning, if not of renouncing the practice of impressment from
our vessels altogether. That it must sooner or later be
abandoned I am fully convinced. I hope that Governor
Strong will live to see the time, and as I am not his enemy,
I wish him and all his Bulwarkites 1 no worse fortune than
the enjoyment of their reflections, when they shall see the
object obtained and look back upon their part during the
struggles for obtaining it.
They, whom you describe as looking across the Atlantic
to know what they must think of the recent events in Europe,
have ere this received their instructions and made up their
mind accordingly. As Bonaparte is disposed of at St. Helena,
they must now think that the dismemberment and ruin of
France are indispensable for the security of the world against
universal monarchy. They must think that the divine right
of the Bourbons requires in confirmation of its legitimacy
the permanent presence and establishment of half a million
of Russian, Austrian, Prussian, Bavarian, British and Span-
ish bayonets. And they must think that to consummate
the holy triumph of lawful monarchy, religion, and social
order, rivers of Jacobin blood must be poured forth from the
scaffold. All this is the orthodox doctrine consecrated by
the victory of La Belle Alliance. I do not think there is an
immediate prospect of tranquillity in Europe. What the
allies will do with France is yet very uncertain. Their
1 The extreme federalist papers had referred to Great Britain as the "bulwark
of our holy religion."
isi5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 357
alternatives are all of a nature which will require the rod of
iron (the sharp pointed rod) to carry them into effect —
twenty-five millions of people to be governed by the armed
rabble of all Europe. I must for once imitate in part the
faction. I must wait to know what to think of it.
I am etc.
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. ii. [James Monroe]
London, 29th August, 181 5.
Sir:
The inclosed papers marked Nos. 1 and 2 are copies of an
official circular note which I received from Lord Bathurst
the day before yesterday, and of my answer to it which was
sent to him yesterday.
The Order in Council concerning the discriminating duties
was signed on the 17th, the day after my interview with
Lord Liverpool, though published only in the Gazette of the
26th. It is conformable to the arrangements settled by the
Convention, and to be in force only from the 17th instant
until six weeks after the meeting of Parliament. It leaves
the question upon the extra duties levied between the 3rd
July and the 17th August as it was.
The papers marked 3, 4, and 5 are copies of a correspond-
ence relative to the impressment at Antwerp of an American
seaman by the captain of a British armed brig. I received
early in July a letter from Mr. Hazard with information of
the fact, and requested Mr. Beasley to apply immediately
to the Admiralty here for the release of the man. I transmit
these papers chiefly for the sake of Captain Nixon's letter.
358
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
I have hesitated some time whether I ought not to make an
immediate demand that he should be punished for the con-
duct stated in his own report. Had the continuance of the
war left a prospect that any more impressments would take
place, I certainly should not have felt myself justified in
overlooking this transaction. But our points of collision
with this country are so continually presenting themselves,
and my instructions so strongly urge upon me the observance
of a conciliatory course, that I seek rather to escape from
occasions for remonstrance than to find them. For the
present not only is all impressment at an end, but the in-
convenience experienced is of having multitudes of sailors
for whom there is no employment. Instances now occur of
Americans discharged as such who had been year after year
endeavoring in vain to obtain it before. Whole bodies of
British seamen have been in processions to the Admiralty
and to the Lord Mayor, to complain that they are starving
for want of employment, and to demand that foreigners
may be excluded from the British sea and merchant service.
The whole fleet is paying off, and it is said that the number
of seamen to be retained in active service in the navy is to
be reduced to twelve thousand. One infallible consequence
of this will be to crowd into our merchant service multitudes
of these British seamen, and if the laws of Congress passed
during the late war for excluding foreign seamen from our
vessels after the peace are to be executed, I am persuaded it
will require extraordinary vigilance and further enforcing
laws to carry it into effect.
The great numbers of sailors so suddenly dismissed from
the public service here have already brought many of ours
to Mr. Beasley, and even to me with applications for relief.
Among them are prisoners of war sent here from the East
and West Indies, who continue to arrive with the fleets and
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 359
in many single vessels — foreigners who had been taken serv-
ing in our armies sent here from Canada and Nova Scotia,
and liberated here or sent back to Germany and Switzer-
land, their native countries. They find their way back here
with the purpose of returning to the United States, and
often without the means of paying for their passage; men
discharged from impressment as unserviceable, with or with-
out pensions, who come not only for passages but for pro-
tections. A great portion of my time is occupied in listen-
ing to the applications of these men, whom I cannot turn
from my doors, because their cases are almost all of peculiar
hardship, and whom I can not always refer to the agent for
seamen, because they do not come precisely within the de-
scriptions for which the laws have provided.
Since beginning this letter I have had the honor of re-
ceiving yours of the 21st ultimo, with a new copy of the
instructions of 13th March and several other inclosures re-
lating to objects of high importance, to which I shall pay
immediate and due attention. By my two last letters you
will perceive that I have recently made application in writ-
ing to Lord Castlereagh, and in a personal interview to
Lord Liverpool, respecting the delay to restore the post of
Michillimackinac, and the removal of slaves that had been
taken, notwithstanding the stipulation in the first article
of the treaty of Ghent, that none should be carried away.
With regard to the fort, nothing could be stronger and more
explicit than the assurances of Lord Liverpool, that the
orders for the restoration had long since been given and
there was no intention on the part of this government to
retain any portion of the territory stipulated to be restored.
I must add, that in the whole of that conference Lord Liver-
pool's manner and deportment were not only temperate and
calm, but even amicable and conciliatory. But you will
36o THE WRITINGS OF [1815
observe in the newspapers which I have inclosed that the
cabinet have determined, not only to maintain, but to in-
crease, the British naval armament upon the lakes of Canada.
I do not apprehend that an immediate rupture with the
United States is intended. France as yet gives ample occupa-
tion both to the military and diplomatic departments. You
must be prepared for the time when the fate of France will
be settled.
I am etc.
TO JOHN ADAMS
Boston House, Ealing, 31 August, 18 15.
My Dear Sir:
• ••*•••
Many of these communications and of the papers inclosed
with them relate to the subject of the fisheries, upon which
I have had as yet no discussion with the government of this
country, though it may probably be one of those upon which
it will be difficult for the two countries to come to an under-
standing. You are acquainted with what has taken place
upon our coast. Some evidence of the light in which it is
viewed by the British government was disclosed by several
incidents towards the close of the last session of Parliament.
I am now called upon to present our view of it for the con-
sideration of this cabinet. The result may probably be
known in the United States soon after the commencement
of the next session of Congress. I shall only say to you that
if the fisheries are to be maintained, New England which has
the deepest interest in them will be called upon not only to
feel, but to manifest the determination to do her share in
maintaining them. If she is as ready to resign them to the
bulwark of our holy religion as she was to resign her own
i8i51 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 361
children to the worse than Helot-servitude of the press-
gang, you may rely upon it they are gone. The Union will
not (it is at least my belief that they will not) again be kicked
into a war for New England interests, with New England
hanging as a dead weight upon all their exertions, or un-
blushingly siding with the enemy in the contest. You have
impressed upon me, with the energy peculiar to yourself,
and with the wisdom in my situation so essential to me, the
duty of supporting our rights on this important question.
"It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." May
mine be guided in the right path! but let me say to you, I
am only the watchman at the gate. Will you or will you
not resign the fisheries? And I ask this question not of
you, my father, for you have answered me already; but of
you, New England? And I tell you without reserve, that
whether you will or not, this question will be brought home
to you. It is not by folding up your arms and lamenting
that there was no article about it in the treaty of Ghent, that
you will escape from that question. If you mean to main-
tain the right, no article in the peace of Ghent was or will
be necessary to preserve it. If you mean to give it up, no
article there would have preserved it. If I am not mistaken,
in the first war for our independence there were resolutions
passed by the legislature of Massachusetts, insisting that
peace should not be made by any sacrifice of the right to the
fisheries. If the same spirit had animated the legislature of
Massachusetts in the second war for our independence, that
is, the late war, no question about the fisheries would ever
have arisen. But when the bulwark found New England
binding her children hand and foot and yielding them up
to the press-gang, surrendering her territory without resist-
ance or effort to recover it, and plotting Hartford Conven-
tions to break off from the Union, she naturally concluded
362 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
that a mere fishery could not be hard to snatch from those
who valued neither the personal security of their people,
nor their territorial sovereignty, nor their national union;
but in the midst of a formidable and desolating war were
conspiring against them all. And now let me add, if the
legislature of Massachusetts will once more be animated by
the spirit to which I have referred; if they will pass resolu-
tions that the fisheries must not be sacrificed, and shall be
maintained; and if they and their constituents will act up
to the spirit of such resolutions, be the consequences what
they may; then, sir, I will not pledge myself that we shall
escape a third war for our independence. But I do pledge
myself, and would stake my own life and the lives of my
children upon it, that at the close of that war no part of our
fishing right will be contested. So let New England, and
especially Massachusetts, look to it; the maintenance or the
loss of this privilege depends entirely upon herself.
I have received from you, or from my mother, or from
some other friend, for I cannot always tell from whom they
come, two or three political, and two or three religious party
pamphlets. I perceive that the Trinitarians and Unitarians
in Boston are sparring together. The bias of my mind is
towards the doctrine of the Trinitarians and Calvinists;
but I do not approve their intolerance. Most of the Boston
Unitarians are my particular friends; but I never thought
much of the eloquence or of the theology of Priestley. His
Socrates and Jesus compared l is a wretched performance.
Socrates and Jesus! a farthing candle and the Sun! I pray
you to read Masillon's sermon upon the divinity of Christ,
and then the whole New Testament; after which be a Socin-
ian if you can.
Religion occasionally mingles with the affairs of Europe.
1 Printed in Philadelphia, 1803.
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 363
You know that the Pope has restored the order of the Jesuits,
and that Ferdinand the Beloved has restored the Inquisi-
tion. But you do not know, perhaps, that since the second
restoration of Louis the Desired, his nephew, the Duke
d'Angouleme, has declared that it will never be well with
France until they are all of the same religion. In conse-
quence of which many hundreds of Protestants have been
butchered in the south of France by the sword and dagger;
others have been burned to ashes with their habitations;
others driven to seek refuge in the mountains of the Ce-
vennes. A new St. Bartholomew has been loudly and openly
called for; the number of victims in the city of Nismes alone
exceeds six hundred. The magnanimous allies, including
the bulwark of our holy religion, witness all this with com-
posure and even with complacency. All the Protestants of
France are set down for Jacobins.
There was a foolish book printed in Philadelphia four or
five years ago, called Inchiquin's Letters.1 Last summer
some loyal pensioner of the Quarterly Review took it up, and
made it the canvas for a scurrilous and false invective
upon America and the whole American people. It suited
the prejudices and passions of this people, who delight to
see those vilified whom they cordially hate. I have seen
two large American pamphlets in reply to the quarterly re-
viewer, one from New York by Mr. Paulding,2 another from
New England by some long winded junto-parson.3 Both of
them, I know not why, assume it for granted that the quar-
terly reviewer was the Poet Laureate Southey, and they
mingle with their defence of their own country a large por-
tion of personal invective upon him. Southey, who began
1 Printed at New York, 1810. The author was Charles Jared Ingersoll.
2 James Kirke Paulding. The pamphlet appeared in 1815.
1 Timothy Dwight, Remarks on a Review, etc., 1815.
364 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
the world with songs of glory to Joan of Arc, Brissot, Roland
and Claviere, is ending with royal cantos of contemned love
for the magnanimous allies and twofold conquerors of France.
But he was not the writer of the obnoxious review of Inchi-
quin, and has published his denial in the Courier. And hav-
ing with his hundred marks, or pounds, and his butt of sack
by the year, become of course a very courtly gentleman, his
delicacy is quite shocked at the rudeness of Mr. Paulding's
pushes. The Yankee parson pleads only for British mercy
upon the pure federal-republicans of New England. All the
rest of the country he freely gives up to reprobation; and
even for them he rests their claim of exemption from the
ribaldry of the reviewer only upon their admiration of
British transcendent virtue. That pamphlet and the Review
are about upon a level with each other; but I have regretted
that Mr. Paulding should have wasted his time and talent
upon such a despicable adversary as the lampooner of the
Quarterly Review.1
I have said few words about the present condition of
France. I have no doubt she is destined to go through the
process which Poland has suffered. The first partition
stripped her of all her conquests and acquisitions since 1792.
The second, now consummating, will tear from her those of
Louis 14 and Louis 15, with the whole of her barrier. The
Bourbons will be set up like Zedekiah of Judah by Nebu-
chadnezzar, or the Poniatowskis of Catherine. In some
unlucky moment the puppets will forget their strings and
attempt to go alone. Then will come the third and final
partition and France, like Poland, will vanish from the map
of Europe. What can avert this catastrophe? Nothing less
than the revival of a national energy now palsied, perhaps ex-
tinct. I must leave them to the mercy of Heaven. I am etc.
1 Sir James Barrow was the author of the review.
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 365
TO WILLIAM EUSTIS
Boston House, Ealing, 31 August, 1815.
Dear Sir:
Your favors of the 25th instant were left at my office in
London by Mr. Langdon, whom I had hoped to have the
pleasure of seeing here, where I have taken my summer and
perhaps winter residence. It is seven miles out of town, and
had the name by which I date before I took it. Mr. Lang-
don is so much pressed for time that he cannot at present
come out. If he comes back here I hope to be more fortunate.
He does me the favor to take this letter.
The newspapers give us accounts from France almost every
day, and some of our countrymen are coming from that
country almost every week. As the allied sovereigns came
to an agreement together in the distribution at Vienna, I
see no reason for doubting that they will agree equally well
upon the distributions of the present day. Now probably,
as then, the principal difficulty will be to make up the Russian
portion. But as to France the case is plain enough, though
there has been some mincing in stating it. France is a con-
quest and as a conquest will be treated. I am sorely dis-
appointed at the gratuitous compliment to the Dey of
Algiers. Will it always be our destiny to end with shame
what we begin with glory? Never was there such an oppor-
tunity for putting down those pirates as we have had. The
work was half done, and instead of completing it, we restore
to the reptile the very sting we had extracted from him.
And what will the peace be worth when he has got back his
ships and men? A snare to the unwary! 1
1 On September 21 he received a letter from Commodore Decatur stating the
terms of the treaty: the cessation of tribute, compensation for American property
captured during the war, and the liberation of American captives.
366 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
Mr. Changuion has been here and is gone home. I had
not the pleasure of seeing him, but he speaks well of our
country and of the reception and treatment which he met
with there. I see no occasion for us to be more solicitous
for a new commercial treaty with the Netherlands than their
government. The old treaty, if recognized by both govern-
ments, will do no harm; I know not that it will do much
good. I am surprised to hear that they have no commerce,
though it is evident the policy of their great ally will be to
allow them as little of that as possible. The present price
at London of all our six per cent stocks, the interest of which
is payable in the United States, is 90. The Hague never was,
and never will be, a place of commerce; and even at Amster-
dam you will find great difficulty in disposing of any Amer-
ican securities. The price there always depends upon that
of the London market combined with the course of exchange.
The exchange between this country and Holland is about
five per cent below par, though in exchange of papers for
specie before the battle of Waterloo it was 20 per cent below
par.
I have received dispatches from our government of
21 July. The horizon between the two hemispheres is yet
dark, and what is worse, darkening. The British naval
commanders, in defiance of the treaty of Ghent, have
carried away from the United States all the slaves they had
taken. There was no certainty that Michillimackinac had
been restored. The agents and traders were instigating the
Indians in the north, and a British officer posted in Florida
was doing the same thing with the Creeks. Our fishing
vessels had been turned away and warned to twenty leagues
of the coast. The British packet had been seized at New
York for an attempt to smuggle goods. At the same time
the Cabinet here have determined to increase their naval
,8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 367
armaments on the lakes of Canada; and the ministerial
gazettes are marked with strong symptoms of hostility.
The language held here is temperate and full of conciliatory
professions. But when the affairs of France shall be settled
to their satisfaction (which I think will be soon), I expect
a change of tone. It is said they have met with some new
difficulties in India, where there is a call for additional
troops from Europe. This, too, I presume will come to
nothing. The fleet, however, is reducing to a peace estab-
lishment. Mr. Everett was good enough to send me a copy
of the new constitution for the Netherlands. Paper con-
stitutions are something in the United States, but they are
something like the Baltimore schooners, which they say
European sailors can not manage to navigate. Mr. Peder-
son has just embarked at Liverpool for Philadelphia. He
goes out as Minister from His Danish Majesty to the United
States.
I am etc.
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 12. [James Monroe]
London, 5 September, 181 5.
Sir:
In compliance with your instructions of the 21 July I have
this day addressed Lord Castlereagh, claiming payment
from the British government for the slaves carried away
from Cumberland Island and the adjoining waters, after
the ratification of the treaty of peace, and in contravention
to one of the express stipulations of that treaty.
My preceding dispatches Nos. 9 and 10 will have informed
368 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
you of the steps I had taken by an official letter to Lord
Castlereagh, and by a personal interview with the Earl of
Liverpool, in relation to this subject, previous to the receipt
of your last instructions. The letter to Lord Castlereagh
has hitherto remained unanswered, and Lord Liverpool made
no attempt to answer either the reasoning of your letter on
the subject to Mr. Baker, or the statement of the proof
with regard to the meaning of the article, resulting from the
manner in which it had been drawn up and agreed to.1 The
substance of what he said was, that in agreeing to the
article as it stands they had not been aware that it would
bind them to restore the slaves whom their officers had en-
ticed away by promises of freedom. The case of those
slaves carried away from Cumberland seems not even to
admit of the distinction to which Mr. Baker and Lord Liver-
pool resorted. Yet the prospect of obtaining either restora-
tion or indemnity appears to me not more favorable in this
case than in any others of the same class. If there were any
probability that this government would admit the principle
of making indemnity, it would become necessary for me to
remark that the list of slaves transmitted to me, and of
which I have sent to Lord Castlereagh a copy, is not an
authenticated document. It is itself merely a copy of a
paper under the simple signature of two persons, one of them
an officer in the service of the United States, and the other
apparently a private individual. It can scarcely be ex-
pected that the British government, or indeed any other,
would grant a large sum of indemnities upon evidence of this
description. Neither could I feel myself prepared to bargain
for the value of these slaves according to a general conjec-
tural estimate of their value. I have made the offer under
the full conviction that it will not be accepted. But if in-
1 See Adams, Memoirs, August 16, 1815.
1815] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 369
demnity should ever be consented to by this government
to be made, the claims are of a nature to be settled only by a
board of commissioners, authorized to scrutinize in judicial
forms the evidence in support of them. I have also thought
it would give a further sanction to the claim to advance it,
while offering still to this government the alternative of
restoring the slaves themselves. With regard to the other
subjects noticed in your instructions, I propose in the course
of a few days to make a further written communication to
Lord Castlereagh or Lord Bathurst. I am induced by vari-
ous considerations to delay it for a short time. One of them
is a hope that the account of the delivery of the post of
Michillimackinac may be received and remove the necessity
of further remonstrances on one of our causes of complaint.
Another, that the documents tending to show the improper
interference of British agents with the Indians of the Mis-
sissippi, and those respecting the extraordinary conduct of
Colonel Nicolls which you transmitted to Mr. Baker, have
not been sent to me with your dispatch. I have only a copy
of your letter to Mr. Baker, without the paper referred to
in it as marked A and B. I am, therefore, not possessed of
the facts upon which the representation must be made.
They undoubtedly have received or will receive them from
Mr. Baker, and also the reports from their own officers.
With the duplicate of your instructions which I presume will
soon come to hand, I flatter myself there will be copies of
the documents omitted in the dispatch that I have received.
I cannot persuade myself that there has been, or is, a
formal determination to withhold the post of Michillimacki-
nac, or that an immediate renewal of war with the United
States is contemplated by the British Cabinet. An opinion,
however, that the peace will not be of long duration is very
generally prevalent both here and upon the European conti-
37Q
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
nent. The nation in general is dissatisfied with the issue of
the late war, and at the same time elated to the highest
pitch of exultation at the situation which they have attained
in this hemisphere. Their great and only dreaded rival is
chained and prostrate at their feet. The continent of Europe
is spellbound by their policy and so completely bought by
their subsidies as, however occasionally restive, to have
ultimately no will but theirs. Their intention is to dismem-
ber France, as the only effectual means of securing themselves
by perpetuating her impotence. They have hitherto ex-
perienced a feeble opposition to this project on the part of
Austria, and a resistance rather more firm on the part of
Russia. It is highly probable that they will ultimately pre-
vail and obtain the consent of both. The situation of the
allies in France is said to be critical, and their conduct can
scarcely be explained on any other ground than the design
to goad the people of the country to some disjointed effort
of insurrection, for a pretext to carve them out and distribute
them like Poland among their neighbors. Such according
to all present appearance is destined to be the fate of France.
Upon the degree of facility with which it may be accom-
plished we may consider the hostile disposition of this cabi-
net towards the United States to depend. While they have
full occupation in Europe we shall have frequent and un-
equivocal manifestations of ill will, but no resort to the
extremities of war. The reduction of the navy to the peace
establishment is one of the indications that they do not
propose an immediate revewal of hostilities with America.
They retain thirteen line of battleships — six of fifty guns —
forty-three frigates and corvettes to the rate of twenty guns,
and thirty-nine smaller sloops of war.
Among the considerations which ought not to be neglected
in estimating the prospects of our future relations with
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 371
Great Britain are the dispositions entertained by the other
European powers and by the party in opposition to the
ministry here. The continental sovereigns, while continually
bending to the policy of Great Britain, are yet willing to see
her involved in a quarrel with America. You are doubtless
aware of the advantage which Russia took of that circum-
stance at Vienna the last autumn, and of the effect which it
had in producing the peace of Ghent. And Mr. Harris has
informed you how unwelcome that peace was to the Russian
Cabinet. The temper of France at the same time bore the
same character, though not so strongly marked. During
the last session of Parliament it was a member of the opposi-
tion, Sir John Newport, who discovered the most earnest
zeal for the exclusion of the American people from the Amer-
ican fisheries. The importance of that subject has been
elucidated by many incidents which preceded and attended
the negotiation at Ghent, as well as by what has since oc-
curred in Parliament. I shall prepare a letter founded upon
your instructions of 21 July relating to this interest; but it
is impossible for me to express in terms too strong or explicit
my conviction that nothing can maintain the right of the
people of the United States in the American fisheries, but
the determined and inflexible resolution of themselves and
of their government to maintain them at every hazard.1
I am etc.
1 A line in cypher followed, for which a key was not found.
372 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
TO JOSEPH HALL
Boston House, Ealing, near London,
9 September, 1815.
Dear Sir:
Our old friend Dr. Eustis upon his arrival at the Hague
forwarded to me your favor of 8th June last, which I re-
ceived with great satisfaction. You have estimated too
favorably the services of the American negotiators of the
treaty of Ghent: and if the party to which you refer had not
ruined its own credit by snapping like gulls at the British
sine qua non: could they have seen, to use a vulgar ex-
pression, far enough before their noses to perceive that they
would soon have to thrust their stings, not against the war
but against the peace, they would have been adversaries far
more formidable than they have proved themselves. After
abusing us for not accepting the sine qua non, they to be sure
had left themselves nothing to say when the peace came,
and accordingly their arguments against the peace have
proved nothing but their own inconsistency. It is some-
thing too despicable for ridicule itself to pretend, like Gov-
ernor Strong, that because we have failed in one struggle to
shake off forever the galling yoke of the press-gang, we are
therefore precluded from ever struggling to shake it off
again. But true, and lamentably true, it is that in the late
war our struggle to shake it off did fail. True it is that the
peace of Ghent was in its nature and character a truce rather
than a peace. Neither party gave up anything; all the points
of collision between them which had subsisted before the
war were left open. New ones opened by the war itself were
left to close again after the peace. Nothing was adjusted,
nothing was settled — nothing in substance but an indefinite
i8i51 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 373
suspension of hostilities was agreed to. For my own part,
far from claiming any credit for the conclusion of the peace,
my own deliberate opinion was, and is, that the American
plenipotentiaries needed all candor and all the indulgence
of their country for having put their signatures to such a
treaty. That the very peculiar circumstances of the times,
the commanding attitude which Great Britain had acquired
in Europe, the removal of the principal cause of war by the
general European pacification, the disordered and almost
desperate situation of our finances, and, above all, our in-
testine divisions imminently threatening the complication
of a civil with the foreign war, with a formal and avowed
confederacy of five states to dissolve the union; that all this
was in candor to be taken into consideration when the con-
duct was to be estimated of the American negotiators in
signing the treaty. I believed that with all these things
duly weighed, they would stand acquitted in the face of
their country and of the world. And when all the particu-
lars of the negotiation should be known I believed they
would deserve the credit of having faithfully done their duty.
When the wise men of the east were loading the Boston news-
papers with dissertations to prove that the sine qua non was
a fair and honorable and acceptable proposition, and with
insults upon the ex-professor for rejecting it with disdain,
they little thought that they were laboring with the most
painful and ignominious industry to give to the ex-professor
and his associates more credit than they deserved. It was
lucky for us that the wise men in their simplicity so con-
spicuously divulged what they were willing to take for a fair
and honorable peace. The misery of the wise men is that
there is yet too much colonial blood flowing in their veins.
The late Chief Justice,1 the progenitor of the Boston rebel,
1 Theophilus Parsons.
374 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
and even our magnanimous governor, you know were late
and lukewarm converts in the first and great war for our
national independence. They were willing enough to fall
into "pursue the triumph and partake the gale;" but if such
men had been the favorites and leaders of our country at the
trying period of our Revolution, the studies of our children
at the university might have terminated in loyal epithala-
miums upon the marriage of the Princess Charlotte of Wales.
When the American plenipotentiaries at Ghent rejected the
sine qua non, there was not one of them who thought himself
entitled to any credit for it as for an act of individual firm-
ness; all knew that we could not accept it. We all knew
that if we should accept it, we should only cover ourselves
with infamy, and that the treaty would be rejected by our
own government. The path was too plain to be mistaken.
Not one of us hesitated an instant, nor would it have been
possible for any other men representing the United States
in the same situation to have done otherwise. The Boston
rebel in our situation would have done as we did. And as
to any advantage in argument which we may have had over
the British plenipotentiaries in that negotiation, we could
in truth as little pretend to merit in that as for spurning at
the sine qua non. They were men of sound understanding,
but they were little more than a medium of communication
between us and the British Privy Council. Now that body,
like all the other governments of Europe, is accustomed to
reason so little and so much to force, that a victory over them
of mere logic is as easy as it is insignificant. The weakness
of the intellectual weapons with which American public
ministers have to contend is almost as mortifying as the
utter inefficacy of the most irrefragable arguments advanced
by them. The statesmen of Europe seldom take the trouble
to use reasoning, and when they do the success of their cause
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 375
may be generally considered as desperate. If the notes of
the British plenipotentiaries at Ghent were scarcely worthy
of refutation, it was because reason had been sacrificed for
a supposed expediency at the laying of the basis of the nego-
tiation. That basis was laid not upon reason or argument,
but upon the expeditions to Plattsburg and New Orleans.
It was not to Lord Gambier, H. Goulburn and Dr. Adams
that they looked for success, but to Sir George Prevost,
and Sir James Yeo, and Ross, and Cockburn, to Cochrane
and Pakenham.
The result of the late war has been to raise the American
character in the estimation of Europe. But let us not be
elated by it; let us look back to it, not with an eye of vain
and idle exultation at the successes with which it was
checked, but with a regard anxiously provident of the future.
Let us inquire how much we suffered by want of adequate
preparation for war before it was undertaken; how much
for the want of a more efficient naval force; how much by
the miserable composition of our army; how much by an
unreasonable reliance upon militia soldiers and militia of-
ficers; how much by an undigested and unsuitable system
of finances; and, above all, how much by disaffection, by
disunion, by an inveterate and unprincipled spirit of fac-
tion. Let us not be afraid or ashamed to look at our dis-
asters— at sea we had our full share of misfortunes, but I
think not a single instance of disgrace. Our triumphs there
were the more precious, because they were all hardly and
dearly bought. But on the land, if we might boast of some
glorious, and be grateful for some fortunate achievements,
for how many defects should we be called to confess, and
for how many disgraces should we blush? It is true that
our enemies were teaching us the practical art of which they
themselves had learnt from the French. They found our
376 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
countrymen apt scholars, and in two or more campaigns I
have no doubt we should have swept them off from the con-
tinent of North America. But at the period when the war
closed our improvement had manifested itself only in defen-
sive warfare; and without detracting from the merit of our
officers or men, we must attribute much of our success at
Plattsburg to the victory on the lake, and something of that
at New Orleans to good fortune — to the errors of the enemy,
and to the casualty of their general's being killed. If the
war had done us no other good than to disclose the talents
and energy of such men as Jackson, Brown, Scott, Macomb
and Gaines, it would still have been great. It was winnow-
ing the grain from the chafF; but should we ever again be
involved in war I hope the appointments will be made with
the solemn consideration that for the field of blood important
military command is not to be committed to superannuated,
shallow, intemperate and worthless characters with im-
punity. A more cheering if not more confident hope is that
we shall yet enjoy many years of peace. But the general
peace about to be restored in Europe may increase the diffi-
culty of preserving ours. The state of Europe is indeed yet,
and for some time will remain unsettled. France is to ex-
perience the fate of Poland, and thus terminates the revolu-
tion which began with liberty, equality, and fraternity, and
which for a long time scared the nations of Europe and the
children of America with the bugbear of universal monarchy.
The disciples of the Socrates, of whom Fisher Ames was
the Plato, may go to bed and sleep in quiet. Their children
will not be taken for the St. Domingo conscription. Let
them not believe, however, that the revolutionary flame is
extinct. Europe still consists only of victors and van-
quished, between whom no permanent state of social repose
can exist. May we persevere in the system of keeping aloof
,8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 377
from all their broils, and in that of consolidating and per-
petuating our own Union. I am, etc.
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 14. [James Monroe]
London, 19 September, 1815.
Sir:
The transactions to which your instructions of 21 July
have reference were of a character to excite in the highest
degree the attention of the government of the United States.
So many simultaneous acts of British officers at various
stations and upon both elements, indicating a marked spirit
of hostility, were calculated to inspire serious doubts with
regard to the pacific, not to say the amicable, dispositions
of the British government; and the latter part of your dis-
patch made it incumbent on me, under certain contingencies,
to take measures of which nothing that had occurred here
had induced me even to think as precautions which the course
of events might render expedient. The commercial con-
vention had shown how excessively difficult it was for British
and American plenipotentiaries to agree upon any one point
in which the mutual interests of the two countries were in-
volved. It had shown how very few points there were upon
which any agreement could be made, and it was evident
from everything, excepting the personal courtesies of the
Prince and his Cabinet, that the animosities of the condition
from which the two nations had lately emerged had very
little subsided. I had, however, before the receipt of your
dispatch not a suspicion that an immediate renewal of
hostilities was contemplated, and even now, although I per-
378 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
ceive no reasons for flattering myself that any satisfaction
will be given us upon any one of our causes of complaint,
yet I do not apprehend that any act of open and avowed
hostility will be sanctioned by the British government at the
present moment. It must, however, be added that the most,
perhaps the only, unequivocal pledge of pacific intentions
is the reduction of the fleet, not only to a peace establish-
ment but to an unusually small one. Your dispatch and the
several procedures to which it related awakened an anxiety
that nothing should be omitted which could be of any pos-
sible utility to our interests in this quarter, and above all
that no hazards should be incurred upon the naval station
in this hemisphere which might be warded by a timely
notice of danger. Having formally renewed the claim for
the restitution of the slaves carried away contrary to the
engagements of the treaty of peace, or for payment of their
value as the alternative, there were other objects which I
deemed it necessary to present again to the consideration of
this government. In the first instance it seemed advisable
to open them by verbal communications, and I requested
of Lord Bathurst an interview for which he appointed the
14th instant, when I called at his office in Downing street.
I said that having lately received dispatches from you re-
specting several objects of some importance to the relations
between the two countries, my first object in asking to see
him had been to inquire, whether he had received from
Mr. Baker a communication of the correspondence between
you and him relative to the surrender of Michillimackinac,
to the proceedings of Col. Nicholls in the southern part of
the United States, and to the warning given by the captain
of the British armed vessel Jaseur to certain American
fishing vessels, to withdraw from the fishing grounds to the
distance of sixty miles from the coast. He answered that
41
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 379
he had received all these papers from Mr. Baker about four
days ago; that an answer with regard to the warning of the
fishing vessels had immediately been sent; but on the other
subjects there had not been time to examine the papers and
prepare the answers. I asked him if he could without incon-
venience state the substance of the answer that had been
sent; he said, certainly. It had been that, as on the one hand
Great Britain could not permit the vessels of the United
States to fish within the creeks and close upon the shores of
the British territories, so on the other hand it was by no
means her intention to interrupt them in fishing anywhere
in the open sea, or without the territorial jurisdiction — a
marine league from the shore. And therefore that the warn-
ing given at the place stated in the case referred to was al-
together unauthorized. I replied that the particular act of
the British commander in this instance being disavowed, I
trusted that the British government, before adopting any
final determination upon this subject, would estimate in
candor and in that spirit of amity which my own govern-
ment was anxiously desirous of maintaining in our relations
with this country, the considerations which I was instructed
to present in support of the right of the people of the United
States to fish on the whole coast of North America, which
they have uniformly enjoyed from the first settlement of the
country. That it was my intention to address in the course
of a few days a letter to him on the subject. He said that
they would give due attention to the letter that I should send
him, but that Great Britain had explicitly manifested her
intention concerning it. That this subject, as I doubtless
knew, had excited a great deal of feeling in this country,
perhaps much more than its importance deserved; but their
own fishermen considered it as an excessive hardship to be
supplanted by American fishermen, even upon the very
38o THE WRITINGS OF [1815
shores of the British dominions. I said that those whose
sensibilities had been thus excited had probably not con-
sidered the question of right in the point of view in which it
had been regarded by us; that they were the sensibilities of
a partial and individual interest stimulated by the passions
of competition, and considering the right of the Americans
as if it had been a privilege granted to them by the British
government. If this interest was to have weight in deter-
mining the policy of the cabinet, there was another interest
liable to be affected in the opposite manner which would be
entitled equally to consideration — the manufacturing.
The question of right had not been discussed at the nego-
tiation of Ghent. The British plenipotentiaries had given
a notice that the British government did not intend here-
after to grant to the people of the United States the right to
fish, and to cure and dry fish, within the exclusive British
jurisdictions in America without an equivalent, as it had
been granted by the treaty of peace in 1783. The American
plenipotentiaries had given notice in return that the Amer-
ican government considered all the rights and liberties in
and to the fisheries on the whole coast of North America
as sufficiently secured by the possession of them, which had
always been enjoyed previous to the revolution, and by the
recognition of them in the treaty of peace in 1783. That
they did not think any new stipulation necessary for a
further confirmation of the right, no part of which did they
consider as having been forfeited by the war. It was obvious
that the treaty of peace of 1783 was not one of those ordinary
treaties which by the usages of nations were held to be an-
nulled by a subsequent war between the same parties. It
was not simply a treaty of peace, it was a treaty of partition
between two parts of one nation, agreeing thenceforth to
be separated into two distinct sovereignties. The condi-
i8i5J JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 381
tions upon which this was done constituted essentially the
independence of the United States, and the preservation of
all fishing rights which they had constantly enjoyed over the
whole coast of North America was among the most im-
portant of them. This was no concession, no grant on the
part of Great Britain, which could be annulled by a war.
There had been in the same treaty of 1783 a right recognized
in British subjects to navigate the Mississippi. This right
the British plenipotentiaries at Ghent had considered as
still a just claim on the part of Great Britain, notwithstand-
ing the war that had intervened.
The American plenipotentiaries, to remove all future dis-
cussion upon both points, had offered to agree to an article
expressly confirming both the rights. In declining this, an
offer had been made on the part of Great Britain of an
article stipulating to negotiate in future for the renewal of
both the rights for equivalents, which was declined by the
American plenipotentiaries, on the express ground that its
effect would have been an implied admission that the rights
had been annulled. There was therefore no article concern-
ing them in the treaty, and the question as to the right was
not discussed. I now stated the ground upon which the
government of the United States considered the right as
subsisting and unimpaired. The treaty of 1783 was in its
essential nature not liable to be annulled by a subsequent
war. It acknowledged the United States as a sovereign and
independent power. It would be an absurdity inconsistent
with the acknowledgment itself to suppose it liable to be
forfeited by a war. The whole treaty of Ghent did constantly
refer to it as existing and in full force, nor was an intimation
given that any further confirmation of it was supposed to be
necessary. It would be for the British government ulti-
mately to determine how far this reasoning was to be ad-
382 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
mitted as correct. There were also considerations of policy
and expediency to which I hoped they would give suitable
attention before they should come to a final decision upon
this point. I thought it my duty to suggest them, that they
might not be overlooked. The subject was viewed by my
countrymen as highly important, and I was anxious to omit
no effort which might possibly have an influence in promot-
ing friendly sentiments between the two nations, or in
guarding against the excitement of others. These fisheries
afforded the means of subsistence to multitudes of people
who were destitute of any other. They also afforded the
means of remittance to Great Britain in payment for articles
of her manufactures exported to America. It was well under-
stood to be the policy of Great Britain that no unnecessary
stimulus should be given to the manufactures in the United
States which would diminish the importation of those from
Great Britain. But by depriving the fishermen of the United
States of this source of subsistence, the result must be to
throw them back upon the country, and drive them to the
resort of manufacturing for themselves, while on the other
hand it would cut off the means of making remittances in
payment for the manufactures of Great Britain. I must
add that the people in America, whose interests would be
most immediately and severely affected by this exclusion,
were the inhabitants of that country which had of late years
manifested the most friendly dispositions towards this
country. This might perhaps be less proper for me to sug-
gest, than for a British Cabinet to consider. To me the
interests of all my countrymen in every part of the United
States were the same. To the government of the United
States they were the same. We could know no distinction
between them. But upon a point where, as an American,
I was contending for what we conceived to be a strict right,
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 383
I thought best, speaking to him, to urge every considera-
tion which might influence a party having other views in
that respect to avoid coming to a collision upon it. I would
even urge considerations of humanity. I would say that
fisheries, the nature of which was to multiply the means of
subsistence to mankind, were usually considered by civilized
nations as under a sort of special sanction. It was a common
practice to leave them uninterrupted even in time of war.
He knew for instance that the Dutch had been for centuries
in the practice of fishing upon the coasts of this island, and
that they were not interrupted in this occupation even in
ordinary times of war. It was to be inferred from this that
to interdict a fishery which had been enjoyed for ages, far
from being an usual act in the peaceable relations between
nations, was an indication of animosity, transcending even
the ordinary course of hostility in war. He said that no such
disposition was entertained by the British government.
That to show the liberality which they had determined to
exercise in this case, he would assure me that the instruc-
tions which he had given to the officers on that station had
been, not even to interrupt the American fishermen who
might have proceeded to those coasts within the British
jurisdiction for the present year; to allow them to complete
their fares, but to give them notice that this privilege could
no longer be allowed by Great Britain, and that they must
not return the next year. It was not so much the fishing,
as the drying and curing on the shores, that had been fol-
lowed by bad consequences. It happened that our fisher-
men by their proximity could get to the fishing stations
sooner in the season than the British, who were obliged to
go from Europe, and who upon arriving there found all the
best fishing places, and drying and curing places preoccu-
pied. This had often given rise to disputes and quarrels
384 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
between them, which in some instances had proceeded to
blows. It had disturbed the peace among the inhabitants
on the shores, and for several years before the war the com-
plaints to this government had been so great and so frequent
that it had been impossible not to pay regard to them. I
said that I had not heard of any such complaints before;
but as to the disputes arising from the competition of the
fishermen a remedy could surely with ease be found for
them by suitable regulations of the government; and with
regard to the peace of the inhabitants, there could be little
difficulty in securing it, as the liberty enjoyed by the Amer-
ican fishermen was limited to unsettled and uninhabited
places, unless they could in the others obtain the consent
and agreement of the inhabitants.
I then adverted to the other topics — Michillimackinac,
Bois Blanc, and Colonel Nicholls. I asked him if he had any
account of the surrender of the post. He said he had no
doubt whatever but that it had long since been delivered up.
But he had no late dispatches from the Canadian govern-
ment. Some delay had occurred by the change of the Gov-
ernor General, by Sir George Prevost's leaving Quebec to
come to Europe, and consequently by General Drummond's
coming from Upper Canada to Quebec. As to the indisposi-
tion manifested by the Indians to accept the peace offered
by the United States, he regretted it very much. It had
been the sincere wish and intention of the British govern-
ment that the peace with the Indians should immediately
follow that agreed to by this country. The British officers
there had been formally instructed to make known to them
the peace which had been concluded, and to advise them to
take the benefit of it. If there had been conduct of a dif-
ferent tendency on the part of British officers or subjects,
it was unauthorized and contrary to the instructions which
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 385
had been given. I said that the American government had
been peculiarly concerned at the proceedings of Col. Nicholls,
because they appeared to be marked with unequivocal and
extraordinary marks of hostility. "Why," said Lord Bath-
urst, "to tell you the truth Colonel Nicholls is, I believe, a
man of activity and spirit, but a very wild fellow. He did
make and send over to me a treaty, offensive and defensive,
with some Indians, and he is now come over here and has
brought over some of those Indians. I sent for answer that
he had no authority whatever to make a treaty, offensive
and defensive, with Indians, and that this government
would make no such treaty. I have sent him word that I
could not see him upon any such project. The Indians are
here in great distress indeed, but we shall only furnish them
the means of returning home and advise them to make their
terms with the United States as well as they can." Per-
ceiving that I had particularly noticed his declaration that
he had declined seeing Colonel Nicholls, he said that he should
perhaps see him upon the general subject of his transactions,
but that he had declined seeing him in regard to his treaty
with the Indians. I then observed that you had also sent
me a copy of your letter to Mr. Baker concerning the island
of Bois Blanc. He said it seemed merely a question of fact,
whether the island had been in the possession of the British
before the commencement of the late war or not. He did
not know how that was, but he thought it could not be
difficult to ascertain, and it was altogether of very little im-
portance.1 I asked him if he could tell me when Mr. Bagot
would probably embark for the United States. He answered
that it depended altogether upon the particular circum-
stances of his family. He expected himself to be able to
embark only in October. I was no doubt aware of the cause
1 To this point the dispatch is given in the Memoirs, September 14, 1815.
386 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
of the delay of his departure. I replied that I asked the
question now, because by a late letter from Mr. Baker to
you it appeared that his powers in relation to the execution
of the treaty of peace were less extensive than the govern-
ment of the United States had understood them to be, which
circumstance had made it more solicitous for the departure
of Mr. Bagot. He assured me that there should be no delay
which could possibly be avoided. In this conversation
Lord Bathurst's manner, like that of Lord Liverpool in the
conference which I had about a month before with him, was
altogether good humored and conciliatory. The conduct of
all the officers and persons complained of was explicitly dis-
avowed; and I understood at first the observation of Lord
Bathurst that he had declined seeing Colonel Nicholls as an
intimation that it was intended to exhibit towards that
officer unequivocal marks of displeasure. But the subse-
quent explanation left me to conclude that, although the
disapprobation of his proceedings was strongly expressed
to me, the utmost extent of it that would be shown to him
would be the refusal to ratify his treaty, offensive and defen-
sive, with the Indians. The answer, that was so promptly
sent to the complaint relative to the warning of the fishing
vessels by the captain of the Jaseur, will probably be com-
municated to you before you will receive this letter. You
will see whether it is so precise as to the limits within which
they are determined to adhere to the exclusion of our fishing
vessels as Lord Bathurst's verbal statement of it to me,
namely, to the extent of one marine league from their shores.
Indeed it is to the curing and drying upon the shore that
they appear to have the strongest objection. But that,
perhaps, is, because they know the immediate curing and
drying of the fish as soon as they are taken are essential to
the value, if not to the very prosecution of the fishery. I
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 387
have no expectation that the arguments used by me, either
in support of our right, or as to the policy of Great Britain
upon this question, will have any weight here. Though
satisfied of their validity myself, I am persuaded it will be
upon the determination of the American government and
people to maintain the right that the continuance of its
enjoyment will alone depend. Two days after this conference
with Lord Bathurst I had occasion to see Mr. Morier, the
under secretary of state in the department of Lord Castle-
reagh, and repeated the question to him relative to the de-
parture of Mr. Bagot, to which I was induced by the event
of Mrs. Bagot's confinement, which happened on the 12th
instant. Mr. Morier was still unable to say when they
would embark, from which there is some reason to suppose
that their departure will be still procrastinated. I asked
Mr. Morier if he had received my letter to Lord Castlereagh
with the list of the negroes carried away by Admiral Cock-
burn. He said he had, but made no further observation
concerning it. I asked him whether they were likely soon
to settle their affairs in France. He said that they had made
considerable progress towards it; that among so many
parties there had naturally arisen some different shades of
opinion with regard to what was best to be done; but it was
probable that they would all be smoothed down. It does
not appear that the Emperor of Russia's objections to the
dismemberment of France have been wholly removed, and
England appears not to have entered into all the views of
Prussia in this respect. In the Prussian army, and especially
among its principal generals, there has been formed an as-
sociation which undertakes to control even the policy of
their sovereign. They denominate themselves the Friends of
virtue, and this virtue is understood to consist of every
measure that can contribute to the debasement, humilia-
388 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
tion, and spoliation of France. They are connected with a
herd of speculative and political fanatics dispersed all over
Germany, and their project has been to distribute between
Austria, Prussia, and the kingdom of the Netherlands, all
the northern provinces of France. They have constantly
been encouraged and instigated in this system by all the
ministerial prints of this country, while the Cabinet, either
to conciliate the Emperor of Russia, or to prepare itself
ultimately for the part of an umpire to distribute the spoils,
has held up the appearance of opposition to them. The
King of France has been kept in a state of entire uncertainty
what his allies intend to do with his country, but they have
lent him the operation of their armies to secure the election
of a legislative assembly of representatives entirely devoted
to the royal cause. They are to assemble on the 25th in-
stant, and from the characters of the persons elected the
tendency of their measures, it is anticipated, will be to the
excess of royalism and the restoration of the ancient abso-
lute government. This is suitable to the views of the allies,
because it will rivet the dependence of the French govern-
ment upon them, and confirm the necessity of maintaining
it by the support of foreign armies. The French army has
been disbanded and a new one formed, at the head of which
generals almost exclusively selected from the old emigrants
have been placed. On the whole the only shades of opinion
in which there appears to be any difference among the allies
appear to be, how France is to be most effectually kept in a
state of impotence. And there is no reason to doubt that
whatever they may finally agree upon will sufficiently insure
that result. She can never rise again but through some new
and real source of discord between her conquerors. I am etc.
,8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 389
TO JOHN ADAMS
Boston House, Ealing, 20 September, 181 5.
My Dear Sir:
Since I have got settled here in the country, eight miles
distant from Hyde Park corner, I can find or make leisure
about once a week to write a letter, short or long, to you,
to my mother, or to my brother, and to inclose with it to you
a weekly newspaper. They will not reach you with equal
regularity, for winds and waves will always be capricious.
And thus after having received in three months after my
arrival here sixteen letters from you, and ten from my
mother, I have now been nearly a full month without re-
ceiving one either from her or you. There are particularly
none since my last letter to you, which was dated the 31st
of August. Much of that was on the subject of the fisheries,
one of many upon which I am destined to perform here the
vox in eremo — to complain, to expostulate, to remonstrate
without effect, and hitherto without answer. I read over
time after time all your letters on this subject, and all their
inclosures. The letter of my victorious rival,1 as you are
pleased to call him, is full of the most important information,
and what I most sincerely regret to find in it is an argument
on the side of our adversaries, certainly as strong and I be-
lieve more ingenious than any they will advance of them-
selves. The newspaper essay signed Richelieu was more
congenial to my own sentiments, and I think it perfectly
conclusive with regard to the right. You have repeatedly
enjoined it upon me never to surrender a tittle of the right.
After having been once brought to the test in that respect
by the deliberate resolution which I had formed to refuse
1 James Lloyd. The letter is printed in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XLV. 380.
39o THE WRITINGS OF [1815
my signature to the peace at Ghent, if an article proposed
by the British plenipotentiaries, and which involved an
admission that the right was annulled, should be persisted
in, I do not apprehend that I shall be so lost to the sense of
what I owe my country as to subscribe to any such conces-
sion hereafter. I hope there is no danger that anything will
be abandoned by me. But you are aware that the case now
stands thus: that while we assert the right, Great Britain
denies it; and that she has already given her practical ex-
position of her principle by instructions to her naval officers,
under which our fishing vessels have been warned to with-
draw to sixty miles distance from the coast; and you know
that by this measure our countrymen have been entirely
deprived of the whole coast fishery for the present year.
Now this sweep of sixty miles is an experiment. The act of
the captain who gave the warning has been disavowed, and
I am assured not only that it was unauthorized, but that
the instructions given were not even to interrupt our fisher-
men at all, the present year, but to give them notice that
they must not expect the same indulgence the next year.
The sixty miles are disclaimed in the most explicit terms,
and I have been verbally told that the intended exclusion
is to be only to the extent of the territorial jurisdiction —
one marine league from the shore. Thus you see it is not on
the point of impressment alone that our Mother Britain
knows how to make a pigmy theory swell into a giant prac-
tice. And after our fishermen have, by virtue of instruc-
tions not to interrupt them at all, been driven to the distance
of sixty miles from the coast, that is, from the fishery alto-
gether, we are left for another year to see how they will be
treated under instructions not to permit them to approach
within one marine league of the coast.
I have in a conference with one of the British Ministers
,8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 391
of State represented to him the principles and, as far as I
was able, the arguments upon which the people and govern-
ment of the United States claim and assert their rights and
liberties to and in fisheries, as they have always been en-
joyed, and as they were recognized by the treaties of 1782
and 1783. I shall very shortly repeat in substance the same
in writing. In the conversation I adduced several other
considerations, subsidiary to the claim of right, with the
view to convince this government that its own interest would
best be promoted by leaving us in the uninterrupted enjoy-
ment of these rights and liberties. I was listened to with
sufficient attention, but evidently without the smallest
effect. My report of the conversation has been prepared
for the government and will, I trust, be received before the
meeting of Congress.
Mr. Lloyd's argument on our side (for he follows Cicero's
precept of arguing both sides), that the treaty stipulation
in our favor of 1783 was not forfeited by the late war, and
could not be forfeited but by an express renunciation on our
part, is admirable as far as it goes; but he seems to consider
that its validity may depend upon the degree of formality,
more or less, with which the British plenipotentiaries gave
notice at Ghent that our fishing liberties within the British
jurisdiction would not in future be allowed without an equiv-
alent. There was no want ot formality, decision, or determina-
tion in the notice. It was given in the first conference on
the 8th of August, immediately after their statement of the
points upon which they were authorized to negotiate, and
the demands of their government. It was recorded in the
protocol of conference of that day, which was published in
the United States and which Mr. Lloyd had certainly seen.
It was in these words: "that the British government did
not intend to grant to the United States gratuitously the
392
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
privileges formerly granted by treaty to them, of fishing
within the limits of the British sovereignty and of using the
shores of the British territories for purposes connected with
the fisheries. "
The answer first given by the American plenipotentiaries
to this declaration was, that they were not instructed to
treat at all upon the subject of the fisheries; but they ex-
pressed their willingness to discuss all the points which had
been suggested by the British plenipotentiaries, including this.
When afterwards the first projet of the treaty was sent
to the British plenipotentiaries by us, it was accompanied
by a note, in which was the following paragraph:
In answer to the declaration made by the British plenipoten-
tiaries respecting the fisheries the undersigned referring to what
passed in the conference of the 9th August can only state that
they are not authorized to bring into discussion any of the rights
or liberties which the United States have heretofore enjoyed in
relation thereto. From their nature and from the peculiar char-
acter of the Treaty of 1783 by which they were recognized no
further stipulation has been deemed necessary by the government
of the United States to entitle them to the full enjoyment of all
of them.
When the British plenipotentiaries came to demand a new
stipulation for the right to navigate the Mississippi, we
objected to them that by our view of the treaty of 1783 it
was unnecessary, and by theirs they were asking a very
important privilege for their subjects within our jurisdic-
tion, and without an equivalent. Then it was that we pro-
posed to remove all future dispute by an article confirming
both the rights, and they in return offered an article stipu-
lating to negotiate after the peace for a renewal of both the
rights, for equivalents. The object of this was, not insidi-
ously, as Mr. Lloyd inferred from my letter of 26th Decern-
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 393
ber last to you, that I supposed it, but avowedly, to obtain
from us an admission that the rights were both annulled by
the war. Indeed we were for the space of ten days in ex-
pectation that this article would have been made a sine qua
non for that very purpose of making us renounce the claim
which we had so explicitly asserted. And then it was that I
had resolved to withhold my signature from the treaty, if
the article should be accepted by my colleagues. The
article was finally withdrawn by the British plenipoten-
tiaries, with a new reference to their original declaration of
the 8th of August. It was therefore fully and unequivocally
understood by them that we considered all our fishing liber-
ties within their jurisdiction as in full force, and by us that
they considered them as at an end. They have now sup-
ported their view of the question by force of arms, and then
disavowed the particular act of force, recurring at the same
time again to their principle. Mr. Lloyd's letter to you
plainly shows, that with regard to the principle, much may
be said on both sides; but while one side is backed with force.,
what becomes of the other if it is maintained only by words?
Let me say again, my dear Sir, that Massachusetts must look
to it. The Massachusetts legislature must pass resolutions,
declaratory of the right and pledging their constituents to
maintain it, and calling upon the government of the Union
to maintain it. If they do not; if they will listen to the
warning of sixty miles from the coast without making their
voice be heard about it, or if in the paltry spirit of faction
they will sacrifice the rights of their country for the sake of
making their loss a subject of reproach against the govern-
ment of the Union, my belief is that you will have a warning
not only of sixty miles, but from the Banks themselves.
Obsta principiis.
I am etc.
394
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 16. [James Monroe]
London, 30 September, 1815.
Sir:
The quarterly account which I now have the honor to
inclose contains two charges among the contingencies which
may require some explanation. One of £4 Sterling per week
to Mr. Grubb,1 for services as my secretary, and the other
of one guinea per week for office rent. The papers which
you will receive written by Mr. Grubb will I trust suffice to
show the necessity that I was under of employing some
person to give me that assistance, particularly when it is
observed that, in addition to all the papers resulting from
the correspondence of the ordinary legation, repeated copies
have been required of those proceedings from the negotia-
tion of the commercial convention. An office was equally
necessary from the multitudes of American citizens and
foreigners going to the United States who, in consequence
of the regulations respecting aliens, are continually applying
to me for passports. Some of these restrictions are now re-
moved, but the demand for passports continues as frequent
as before.
Mr. Grubb is a citizen of Virginia and, I believe, person-
ally known to you. As my employment of him will be
transient, and only until the arrival of a secretary to the
legation, I have promised to recommend him for a more
permanent situation on the arrival of the consul and agent
for seamen. His assiduity, integrity, and facility in business
are such that I wish it were in my power to recommend him
1 James Grubb.
isi5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 395
to better and more profitable service. ... At the request
of Mr. Sumter, I now transmit to you duplicates of a letter
from him to Mr. Crawford, together with a note from Mr.
Canning to the Regency at Lisbon, and Lord Strangford's
valedictory note at Rio Janeiro. The Count de Funchal,
the Portuguese Ambassador, has at last taken leave at this
court, and the Chevalier de Freire a minister of the second
order, remains as the only representative here of the Por-
tuguese Prince Regent. The Ambassador and the Envoy
have long been here at once, the one accredited by the
Regency at Lisbon, and the other by the Regent at Rio.
Mr. Sumter has very fully disclosed the real views of the
British government and their longings for the recoloniza-
tion of the Spanish and Portuguese possessions in America.
It is here said that they have obtained a cession of the
Floridas from Spain, and have stipulated in return to pro-
hibit British subjects from furnishing any supplies to the
independents of South America. They must, however,
have known that they could not prevent their merchants
from furnishing such supplies. But the British Cabinet
now presents the rare spectacle of a free government, labor-
ing to rebuild the shattered fabric of social order upon the
mouldering ruins of colonial feudal, Jesuitical, and papal
institutions.
The Austrian charge d'affaires has addressed a note to
me requesting that the government of the United States
would take measures to arrest a man by the name of Auguste
Annoni, charged with having robbed Count Wallenstein of
money and papers. I shall send you copies of this note and
of the description of the man's person inclosed in it. I can
hardly suppose the Austrian government will expect an
answer to the application.
I am etc.
396 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
TO THOMAS REILLY
Boston House, Ealing, 2 October, 18 15.
Sir:
In the month of June, 1812, the crew of the Monticello,
Captain Salt, were discharged from that ship, which had
been seized and confiscated by the Russian government for
having entered the port of Cronstadt under false papers,
pretended American.
The crew were partly Americans who had shipped in her
under the assurance and belief that she was really American
and partly of other nations. They wrote to me, and several
of them applied to me personally, claiming my intervention
to obtain the payment of their wages. I was authorized to
interfere only on behalf of those who were Americans. The
business was transacted by Mr. Sparrow, the American con-
sular agent at Cronstadt, under the orders of Mr. Harris,
the consul of the United States. I was informed by them
and by letters from Charles Drew, one of the American sea-
men of the ship, that a settlement was made with the crew
by payment of a part of the wages due them to discharge the
expenses which had been incurred for their subsistence dur-
ing a detention of nearly a year there after the vessel was
seized, and while Captain Salt refused to discharge them;
and by Captain Salt giving them drafts or orders upon his
owners for the rest. This arrangement was acquiesced in
to avoid the measure of imprisoning Captain Salt, whose
health was bad and who stated that he had no other means
of making payment. The wages were due for two voyages.
The first from London to Lisbon and Cork, and the second
to St. Petersburg. The names of those sailors who applied
to me were Charles Drew, Thomas Powell, James Robert-
i8i51 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 397
son, Thomas Wilkson, Adam Forsyth and John English.
Besides whom I find among my papers the names of Alexis
Maupertuis, J. Minder, J. Morris and J. Francis. Wilkson
may be the same named in your letter Wilkinson, but I
think neither Repets nor Griffin applied to me. If they be-
longed to the ship, their claim for wages until June, 1812,
when they were discharged, was just.
I am etc.
TO MITCHEL KING
Ealing, 4th October, 181 5.
Sir:
• • • • • • •
One of my objects in calling at your lodgings was to in-
quire, whether you had received a definitive answer upon
the application for copies of the papers desired for the use
of the Literary and Philosophical Society of South Carolina,
and to renew the offer of my services when it may be here-
after in my power to render, either for the attainment of that
object, or for the projected publication of Dr. Ramsay's
posthumous work. You are acquainted with the reasons
which induced me to think that the chance of obtaining the
papers would be more favorable without than with my in-
tervention, and I have taken the liberty of referring Mr. El-
liott l to you for an explanation upon that subject. At the
1 Stephen Elliott, of Charleston, S. C. "The public offices from which the Society-
are desirous of obtaining copies of ancient documents are those with which I am
occasionally required by my public duties to transact business. Any application
at those offices for copies of official papers, even of ancient dates, in which I should
participate might be liable to suspicion that the papers might be wanted not for his-
torical purposes alone. I doubt whether such papers would be granted at all.
But I was confident that an application through me would be less likely to succeed
than through private channels; and independent of the refusal which I was per-
398 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
same time I shall not lose sight of the wishes of the Society,
and if while I remain here any opportunity shall occur in
which I can promote their accomplishment, I shall be happy
to take advantage of it. And if Dr. Ramsay's executors
should take further measures for obtaining the copyright
here of his work, and I can in any manner be of service to
him in the design, it will give me the highest satisfaction.
I am etc.
TO WILLIAM PLUMER
Ealing near London, 5 October, 181 5.
My Dear Sir:
Your favor of the 26 July last has been very recently re-
ceived by me with so much pleasure that I indulge more
fresh the hope of hearing frequently from you in future,
while I remain in this country. The changes which have
taken place both in Europe and America in the course of the
last year have indeed been great and extraordinary, but the
mine of extraordinary events seems now to be exhausted.
The wars of the French Revolution would seem to be just
closed. France, after having been twenty years the terror
and the oppressor of Europe, has now become the victim of
oppression in her turn. As she has treated others, she is now
treated herself. In this, whatever may be our opinion of
the means or of the instruments on either side, we can at
least perceive the distributive justice of providence. There
is, indeed, yet one nation upon which the punishment of
heaven has not fallen in the same proportion as upon the
rest, and that is precisely the nation in the opinion of many
suaded it would meet, it was not impossible that the request itself might excite a
jealousy which would operate unfavorably upon the public interests with which I
am charged." To Elliott, October 4, 18 15. Ms.
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 399
more heavily chargeable with the guilt of all the wretched-
ness and misery under which the world has been groaning
than all the rest. But the whole field is not yet before us.
The glory and prosperity which that nation has acquired in
war will be brought perhaps to a severer test. The danger
is, and it is a danger by no means immaterial to us, that she
may soon discover that she cannot exist in peace without
ruin; that war is indispensable to maintain her universal
monopoly, and that universal monopoly is no less indis-
pensable to support her under the load of her debt.
It is not easy to foresee what will be the next turn in
the course of European policy. The fear of France can
henceforth no longer operate as a center of union to all the
rest of Europe. There is no common interest which can
still combine them in the league by which they have been
these two years associated. Differences of interest, as well
as of opinion, have already arisen among them, and will in
all probability before long widen to a total separation.
Whether they will long remain at peace among themselves
it is for time to discover.
It can also scarcely be foreseen how far the affairs of
Europe will in future influence the policy of our own country.
From the period when the British government undertook to
restore what was called the rule of the war of 1756, until the
ratification of the treaty of Ghent, our political parties have
found objects of contention in the state of our foreign rela-
tions. The system pursued by the government of the United
States, though supported by the sentiments of the great
majority of the people, has been opposed by a small but
powerful party throughout the Union, and by a much larger
one in New England, constituting occasionally the majority
in the state legislatures, and combining with a shallow and
short-sighted project for dissolving the Union, to which
400
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
many unfortunate events have given a portentous impor-
tance. This project, I am apprehensive, will survive the
agitations occasioned by the war; but I hope it will ever
terminate with as little credit and success as it did in the
Hartford Convention. I earnestly wish and fondly hope
that we may be indulged with some years of peace, and that
during this interval we shall seek and devise remedies for
the evils which we have experienced in the late war. Shall
we for example be radically and forever cured of the reliance
upon embargoes, non-intercourse, and restrictions, as weapons
either defensive or offensive against Great Britain? I would
fain hope that we shall, though I am not without my fears
that the event has left that question unsettled. Shall we
perceive that our only effectual defence is a naval force?
This appears to me to have been so clearly demonstrated
that I scarcely know how it can be hereafter questioned.
And yet, who will assure me that at the end of seven years
another war will not break out upon us, and find us as un-
prepared as the last? Shall we organize a system of finance
which will not bring us in two years into the jaws of bank-
ruptcy? What our resources would have been had the war
continued during the present year, I can scarcely imagine.
In two years of war we had been perfectly brought to our
wits end, and that with the example of this country before
us, which for twenty years successively has raised almost
without an effort whatever sums she wanted, and among all
the evils of war has never for a moment suffered the want
of a shilling or of fifty millions to carry it on. When I ex-
pressed the hope that we may be favored with several years
of peace, it was because I think it may be expected from the
general aspect of affairs. But the surest pledge that we can
have of peace will be to be prepared for war. The peace of
Ghent did not settle any of the contests for which the war
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 401
had been waged, because the peace in Europe had removed
the causes of the contest. Nothing was yielded on either
side; it was a drawn game. But the war had opened other
sources of contention which the peace has not closed. The
general peace now taking place, if it continues any length of
time, will open others. The British spirit of commercial
monopoly will be as ardent and rapacious in time of peace
as it has been in the time of war. Now is the moment when
the rivalry of commerce and navigation will display itself
to the utmost extent. They have already formally assumed
the principle of excluding us totally from all their West
India possessions, and even from their provinces in North
America. They have also excluded us altogether from the
coast fisheries for the present year, and they have instigated
the Indians, northern and southern, to war against us. We
have brought the Algerines to terms of peace at the mouth
of our cannon; but if we expect to enjoy unmolested any
portion of the valuable trade of the Mediterranean, we must
not rely upon the permanency of a peace without the guar-
anty of a tribute, or without an armed force upon that sea,
always ready to protect the right and avenge the wrong.
The late war has embittered the animosities of the two
nations against each other. It had many of the characters
of a civil war. It seemed to be a war not only of nations but
of individuals. It consisted not merely of battles won and
lost, but every incident on one side or the other wounded
the pride and mortified the feelings of the nation. Our naval
victories sting the British nation to the quick, while the in-
effable disgrace of our military discomfitures in Canada,
and the shameful disaster at Washington, still grate upon
every national fibre that we possess. With all those com-
bustible materials we shall be favored in full measure by
heaven, if we succeed in preserving peace for a series of years;
402
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
and I should consider it as a case altogether desperate, if I
did not flatter myself that we shall be convinced of the ex-
pediency of maintaining an adequate naval force to baffle
every pretence of blockading the whole American coast. I
learn with great satisfaction the progress which you have
made in your historical work, and the extensiveness of the
plan upon which you intend to pursue it. Several other
publications on the same subject are intended in different
parts of the United States, and I understand the late Dr.
Ramsay of Charleston, South Carolina, had completed a
history of America, which will be shortly published in two
octavo volumes by his executors.
I have seen one number of Mr. Tudor's North American
Review, and Mr. SpafTord * of Albany has sent me the first
and second numbers of the American Magazine conducted
by him. There are new literary and philosophical societies
forming in various parts of our country, and there is every
possible demonstration of the increased and increasing in-
terest in the pursuits of literature and science taken by the
people of the United States. The war I am persuaded has
not a little contributed to give this new impulse, and it is
one of the benefits which we have derived from it. I lament
that since my arrival in this country, my occupations have
so absorbed my time as to leave me none for improving the
advantages which in that respect it affords.
The situation in Europe is at this time one of almost per-
fect tranquillity. Since the transportation of Napoleon to
the island of St. Helena, one would suppose that all the
sources of discord were drained. The tranquillity of France
is preserved by the bayonets of near one million of foreigners,
and her fate has for the present been probably decided by
the conclave of Emperors and Kings, who have been sitting
1 Horatio Gates Spafford.
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 403
these three months at Paris to pronounce upon it. The sec-
ond dismemberment of France has been accomplished. The
Emperors and Kings are returning home, but two or three
hundred thousand foreign troops are to remain in France,
to keep Louis the Desired steady upon his throne. An in-
surrection is said to have broken out against Ferdinand the
Beloved in Spain, but probably by the help of the Inquisi-
tion it will soon be suppressed and social order restored.
There is also a proclamation of martial law in Ireland, to put
down some refractory peasants who object to paying tithes
to the Bulwark of our Holy Religion. But these things are
scarcely sufficient to fill the pages of the newspapers. Per-
haps something more interesting may soon occur. In the
meantime I remain etc.
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 17. [James Monroe]
London, 7th October, 1815.
Sir:
The Envoy of Wurtemberg l at this court has addressed
to me a letter, requesting information concerning a person
named Guber,2 a native of that country, stated to have set-
tled and died in the state of Virginia. I have the honor to
inclose copies of these papers, together with those mentioned
in my last from the Austrian charge d'affaires, and of my
answers to both these applications. I likewise transmit a
copy of the letter that I have written to Lord Bathurst con-
cerning the slaves taken from Mr. Downman.
1 Count Beroldingen.
2 G. F. Guber.
404
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
Mr. Elias Van der Horst, heretofore Consul of the United
States at Bristol, has written to inform me that in considera-
tion of his advanced age and the infirm state of health he
has determined to decline a reappointment to that office.
Mr. Robert W. Fox, formerly Consul at Falmouth, informs
me that he has been appointed as consul at that port and
its dependencies, and that agreeably to directions from the
United States he has appointed his nephew, Thomas Were
Fox, to be consular agent at Plymouth.
I have heard nothing yet from Mr. Bagot concerning the
period of his departure, but it is stated that the Niger frigate
has been ordered to be fitted up to take him and his family
to the United States. Perhaps his final instructions may
not be made up until after the return of Lord Castlereagh
from Paris. This cannot be much longer delayed, as the
treaty which settles for the present the fate of France has
been completed, and the allied sovereigns have all left Paris.
That this treaty is equally burdensome and humiliating to
France is universally understood. The meeting of the legis-
lative assemblies has been protracted from the 25 of last
month to this day. It appears that a new embassy from
this country to China is in contemplation. You have doubt-
less been made fully acquainted with the displeasure given
to the Chinese government by the outrageous proceedings
of some of the British ships of war against American vessels
within that jurisdiction.
The newspapers state that very recent instructions have
been sent to Lord Exmouth, to remain in the Mediterranean
until entire tranquillity shall be established in that quarter,
and then to return leaving the command with Admiral Pen-
rose. A packet from Malta just arrived left Admiral Pen-
rose in the Queen, and also the American squadron about
the middle of September at Messina. I have heretofore in-
iSisJ JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 405
timated to you certain indications of the turn which the
political opinions of the party in opposition to the ministry
are taking in regard to the relations between this country
and America. In the numbers of the Morning Chronicle
which I send with this letter there is an elaborate discussion
of the commercial convention lately concluded, with an
attempt to prove that it is in every part disadvantageous to
Great Britain and favorable to the United States. It not
only censures the two articles which are in the treaty, but
arguing upon an erroneous statement that it contains another
article excluding the British from all trade with the Indians
within the jurisdiction of the United States, it comments
with much severity upon that. I am persuaded that the
same sentiments on the subject of this convention will be
maintained by the opposition party at the next session of
Parliament. Their motives cannot be mistaken. For not-
withstanding their own policy towards America has generally
been more liberal than that of the present ministers, they
would upon party principle be glad to see the ministers em-
broiled in a new quarrel with America, and at the same time
they wish to recommend themselves to that feeling of antip-
athy against the Americans which prevails throughout this
nation, and which their dissatisfaction, both with the con-
duct and the termination of the late war, has greatly ag-
gravated. Their exclusion from the Indian trade, though
not formally stipulated in the convention, must be admitted
by the ministry, because they advanced no pretension to it
but by an article for authorizing it, which they could not
obtain. The opposition, like the writer in the Morning
Chronicle, will expatiate upon the immense importance of
the fur trade, and I suppose the ministers will defend them-
selves by opposing to it our exclusion from the coast fisheries.
There is on the other hand in the Morning Chronicle of
4o6 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
21 September an article respecting the Floridas, certainly
not from the same pen as the commentaries upon the con-
vention, but proceeding nevertheless from the same party.
No notice of either of them has been taken by the ministerial
daily journals, excepting a short article in the Courier of last
evening; nor of the exposition of which I inclose you a copy
of the seventh edition, printed in London. You are well
aware that silence is one of the expedients of all the party
newspapers in this country, and that there may be a strong
sensation operating upon the public without any symptom
of it appearing in them.
I am etc.
TO EARL BATHURST
25 Charles Street, Westminster,
7 October, 18 1 5.
My Lord:
The documents of which I have the honor of inclosing to
your Lordship copies have been transmitted to me from the
government of the United States, with instructions to apply
to that of His Majesty for the restitution of the slaves re-
ferred to in them, or for indemnity to their proprietor,
Raleigh W. Downman, for the loss of them.
In the cases which I have heretofore presented to the con-
sideration of His Majesty's government, and concerning
which I am yet waiting for the honor of an answer, I have
deemed it sufficient to state in support of the documents
furnished the simple fact of taking and carrying away of the
slaves, and the appeal to the plain and explicit stipulation
in the treaty of Ghent which has been thereby violated.
But in addition to these grounds of claim it cannot escape
1815] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 407
your Lordship's discernment that in the present case there
are circumstances which entitle it to peculiar regard, inde-
pendent of the engagement in the treaty — these slaves having
been taken and carried away by a British officer, while him-
self under the special and solemn protection of a flag of
truce. The transaction therefore was in the nature of a
breach of parole, marked not only with the exceptional
characters of depredation upon private property, but with
the disregard of that sacred pledge of peace which is tacitly
universally understood to be given by the assumption of a
flag of truce. To prescribe the restitution of property thus
captured, no express stipulation could be necessary. Yet
the stipulation of the treaty applies likewise to the present
claim in all its force. I am induced to hope it will meet with
the immediate attention of His Majesty's government.
I am etc.
TO JOHN ADAMS
Boston House, Ealing, 9 October, 18 15.
My Dear Sir:
Your favors of 27, 28, and 30 August, were all received
together. They as well as your preceding letters express so
much uneasiness for me, and on my account, that I wish it
were in my power to tranquillize your feelings. Aware as I
am of the heavy responsibility of my present situation, and
diffident as I ought to be of my own fitness for it, I have
certainly seen times and gone through emergencies, more
painful and more distressing than any of those which now
embarrass and perplex me. Now, indeed, incedo per ignes sup-
positos cineri doloso. I am well aware that the most formi-
dable dangers are those that I cannot see. But my vigilance
is not asleep, neither has that portion of industry to which
4o8 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
I have been long habituated deserted me. That there is
nothing to be obtained here, I am fully convinced. That
they now strongly grudge what they have conceded, is like-
wise evident. The commercial convention as you remark
was a "temporary expedient to keep the world along;" and
I fear the sentence is too prophetical, that "this tranquillity
will be of short duration." I must be content to say, like
Hezekiah, "Is it not good, if peace be in my days"? Our
country now enjoys the blessing of peace, and although the
period may be not far distant when she will again be called
to defend her rights by force of arms, there is yet reason to
hope that she will enter upon the field under more favorable
auspices than she was compelled to do in the late war. So
far as human foresight can anticipate, there is no danger of
a new war from the causes which produced the last. With a
navy reduced to the peace establishment, and with a hun-
dred thousand sailors upon her hands more than she can
employ, Britain is not likely to have any occasion very soon
for the services of a press-gang for a European war. As
little will she need Orders in Council and paper blockades
to destroy neutral commerce. But the Canadian boundary,
the fur trade, the fisheries, the commercial intercourse with
the East and West Indies, the Floridas, and a general com-
mercial competition all over the world, are already produc-
ing collisions, which in the temper of the two nations towards
each other, it is not to be expected will leave them long at
peace. But as the interests for which it will be necessary
for us to contend will be almost exclusively those of the
northern and eastern sections of the Union, I hope and trust
that the government of the United States will take special
care, not to get involved in a new war, without being certain
of the support and cooperation of those for whom it must
be waged. Upon the question concerning the right to the
i8i51 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 409
coast fisheries, the two governments are already at issue.
You know that our fishermen have been excluded the present
season, and the British government has formally notified to
ours their determination to exclude us from them in future.
I have, under instructions from the Secretary of State, ad-
dressed a letter on the subject to Lord Bathurst, asserting
our right and supporting it to the utmost of my power. As
yet I have received no answer to it; but from the conversa-
tion which I previously had with Lord Bathurst I know that
the determination here upon that point is irrevocable.
Nothing therefore will remain for us, but to maintain the
right as it is contested — by force; but I have purposely
written the letter in such a manner as to leave the American
government and nation the choice of the time when they
may deem it expedient to apply force to the support of their
right. The commercial convention contains only two articles
of any importance; one mutually abolishing what were
called the discriminating duties; and the other stipulating
the admission of American commercial vessels at the four
principal British settlements in the East Indies. The dura-
tion of the convention is to be only four years from the time
of the signature; but at this very moment an attempt is
making to excite a clamor against the ministers for having
assented even to those two articles. You will not be sur-
prised that this attempt proceeds from the opposition, and
that the Morning Chronicle is the vehicle by which it is
made. The loss by the British of the privilege of trading
with the Indians within our jurisdiction, and the loss of the
fur trade which they foresee as the consequence that must
result from it, is another source of heartburning and of
discontent which will breed much ill blood here. It has
already been the cause of the Indian war which we are now
obliged to sustain, and which I hope our government will
4io THE WRITINGS OF [1815
see the necessity of terminating in the most effectual
manner.
On the subject of our intercourse with the West Indies
the British plenipotentiaries, with whom we negotiated the
commercial convention, would not even listen to us. From
the first moment they declined all discussion about it. The
system of universal exclusion was already established, and
not one particle from it would they swerve. They extended
it likewise in all its rigor to their provinces in North America,
and refused to allow us even the privilege of carrying in
boats down to the St. Lawrence and to Montreal our own
produce, for exportation thence in their ships to Europe.
One consequence of this rigor you will find in the newspaper
inclosed. The council and assembly of the island of Antigua
are deliberating upon the distressed state of the colony, and
their joint committee report that it is all owing to this total
exclusion of American vessels from the island. Other colonies
will undoubtedly suffer in like manner from the same cause.
But the sufferings of the colonies are the gain of the West
India merchants, whose influence with the government
will always overpower that of the planters, and the more
certainly, because combining with the jealousies and fears
and prejudices always operating against the United States.
Nothing can however be more clear in my mind than our
interest and policy to avoid as long as possible a new war
with England. How long it will be possible I know not; for
the problem is now to be decided whether this country can
exist in peace, and if, as is very possible, their government
should find that it cannot, the danger is that they will plunge
the nation headlong into a war with us, because it is against
us only that they will be able to stimulate the national pas-
sions to the tone of war. It is a singular symptom that the
state of peace has brought a very oppressive burden upon
l8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 4"
the farmers and landholders of the country. The price of
wheat, and consequently of bread, has fallen within these
two years more than one-third. The value of land has
fallen at least in the same proportion. Rents are coming
down in the same manner, but the taxes are not reduced.
The farmers, however, become more and more unable to
pay them, and unless something should occur to restore the
prices to the level of the former years, the landed and the
funded interests of the kingdom will be brought into such
a state of opposition against each other, as to threaten the
tranquillity of the nation.
On the side of France they have henceforth forward
nothing to fear. The elements of civil society in that country
are dissolved. For the price of two or three provinces, and
of all her important fortresses, the Bourbons are to be saddled
upon the remnant of that wretched people, and to be main-
tained by an army of two or three hundred thousand foreign
soldiers, fed upon their vitals. Partial insurrections must
inevitably be the consequence of this state of things; but
the internal war of interests and passions will render any
general and united effort impossible. Every struggle for
deliverance will be smothered in blood, and be made the
pretext for new spoliations and partitions. France is irre-
trievably lost, unless she can produce another Joan of Arc.
You will have more reason than ever to say that the wars
of the Reformation still continue, when you learn the late
massacres of the Protestants, under the auspices of the
Duke and Duchess of Angouleme. You will have many of
the miserable fugitives from that persecution in America,
and may they find there a country where St. Bartholomew
butcheries are not in honor and in fashion.
Let me hope that in our country religious controversy will
not extend beyond the consumption of paper. I think the
4I2 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
first time I ever saw Dr. Morse was in a pulpit at an ordina-
tion addressing a prayer to the triune God. It seems he is
steady to the faith. As he and the Boston rebel are both
members of the corporation, I wish they would agree to hold
a forensic dissertation on a commencement day, upon the
question which of the two, Athanasius or Socinus, was the
greater man. I wrote you some time ago how my belief
inclined upon this question. But I have no desire to make
converts, because I believe that a sincere Socinian may be
saved, and that a very honest and intelligent man may be a
Socinian. There is something of this dispute rumbling also
here; but the Unitarians are losing ground. They will
never, probably, become the prevailing sect of Christians,
for the plain reason that when you are going down a steep
hill, the nearer you are to the bottom the harder it is to stop.
I will send you Tucker's Light of Nature by the first op-
portunity, but they ask nine guineas for the six volumes of
Brucker. If you wish to have it at that price, be kind enough
to let me know. I have hesitation, because I was not certain
that you meant to order it.
I am etc.
TO JONATHAN RUSSELL
Boston House, Ealing near London,
10 October, 1815.
My Dear Sir:
I ought to begin by apologizing to you for the length of
time that I have suffered to elapse since our parting at the
door of the Gobelins, where we had seen them so busy weav-
ing the glories of Napoleon, without writing to you. But our
visit to the Catacombs cost me a cold and cough which was
for some weeks in a fair way of making me a candidate for
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 413
permanent admission to them; and the interruptions of the
communications between France and Germany from the
time of your departure until my own made it impossible to
transmit a letter to you.
I waited at Paris until the 10th May for orders from home,
and then received a letter from the Secretary of State di-
recting me to come to London, with information that I
should find a commission here. I left Paris on the 16th and,
meeting some days detention at Havre, only reached London
the 25th of May. Here I found my two eldest sons who had
just arrived from the United States, and with them an ac-
cumulated correspondence from America of nearly a whole
year. I also found Messrs. Clay and Gallatin somewhat
advanced in the negotiation of a treaty of commerce with
this government. They were doubtful whether it would
eventually come to anything, and were proposing from day
to day to leave London and embark in the Neptune which
was at Plymouth, with Mr. Bayard on board, too ill to be
landed, and whither Mr. Crawford was already gone when
I arrived in England. The Neptune finally sailed on the
1 8th June, leaving Messrs. Clay and Gallatin behind, and
Todd also, who got the information of her departure as he
was stepping into the coach to go and join her at Plymouth.
He had lost his passage in her from Havre to Plymouth in the
same manner. As to the commercial treaty the Ministers
here seemed to proceed reluctantly, and to have consented
to a negotiation only to avoid the discourteous alternative
of a flat refusal. In the preliminary conferences held before
my arrival they had manifested a strong disinclination to
treat upon any of the political articles, such as impressment
and blockade; they had closed the door against all discussion
about trade to their possessions in the West Indies, but they
were willing to stipulate for a mutual abolition of discriminat-
4H THE WRITINGS OF [1815
ing duties, and they had been more liberal in their professions
relative to the East India trade than we found them when we
came to sign and seal — at least so they had been understood
by Mr. Clay and Mr. Gallatin. For they had agreed to admit
us to the trade to their possessions in India direct and indirect
without any equivalent. They had, however, said loosely
something about expecting some reciprocal accommodation
from the United States in another part of the treaty — "for
instance in the fur trade" But they had named that only
as an example, without apparently caring much about it,
and they had immediately been told, that if by that they
meant the trade with the Indians within our jurisdiction, we
were expressly instructed against that, and that the instruc-
tions were given not upon commercial but political consid-
erations. The British plenipotentiaries appointed were the
Vice President of the Board of Trade, with Mr. Goulburn
and Dr. Adams. When we entered formally upon the busi-
ness with them, we found them less complying than their
previous conversation had led my colleagues to expect. All
the political articles were at once discarded, for it was fore-
seen that if an ultimate agreement upon any of them could
have been accomplished, it was impossible without a length
and latitude of discussion which the time of Messrs. Clay and
Gallatin would not allow. With respect to the abolition of
discriminating duties we had little difficulty. But upon that
point no treaty was necessary. The principle had been of-
fered on our part by an act of Congress passed at the last
session. An act of Parliament would have made it the law
of both countries as effectually as a treaty. We offered an
article respecting our intercourse with the British colonies
on the continent of North America, but we found we could
not agree upon that point; for they wanted a free and un-
limited intercourse by land with our territories, and would
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 415
not allow us in return to carry our own produce in our own
boats even to Montreal. Thus we split upon that point. It
was a miracle that we did not split upon the East India ar-
ticle. For they insisted most pertinaciously upon their
equivalent, or rather upon an equivalent; for they abandoned
completely and formally all pretension to a right of trading
with the Indians within our jurisdiction. On our part we
resisted all claim to an equivalent for a trade which, we said,
carried its own equivalent with it. I was for my own part
perfectly willing to leave it as it stood, being fully convinced
that they would not prohibit a trade so beneficial and, in-
deed, so necessary to themselves. They at first refused to
agree to the article without the equivalent. We then pro-
posed an article putting us merely on the footing of the most
favored nation. But this they refused, because they said
they did allow the nations having possessions in India them-
selves to trade with theirs. We at last put the bargain into
their own hands, offering to sign the convention upon the
single article about discriminating duties, or to take it with
the East India trade for four years. Even in accepting this
they shortened the term of four years, by making them run
from the time of the signature instead of that of the rati-
fications. Now the only thing of any value that we obtained
by this convention, as I thought, was a formality. I had
received a rap on the knuckles from home about the Ghent
treaty, for that the American plenipotentiaries had signed
their names under those of the British, and for that the King
of Great Britain was named before the United States in all
the copies of the treaty. So we determined it should not be
so again. The alternative was therefore strictly maintained
in naming the parties. In our copy the United States were
constantly named first, as his Britannic Majesty was in
their copy. The signatures were in parallel lines, and those
4I6 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
of each party at the left hand in his own copy. There was
some little manoeuvring on the other side to avoid all this,
but the usage among all the European powers in all their
treaties was too universal and too notorious to be contested;
and when we stated the necessity of conforming to it, the
British plenipotentiaries acquiesced without more objection
than barely to show that they yielded even that with re-
luctance. Two or three commonplace articles about con-
suls, and universal peace, and the like, were added and the
convention in five articles for four years was signed on the
3rd July. But as if it was decreed that the British were never
to make a bargain with us but with a formal and avowed
determination to break it, Lord Bathurst has sent me an
official circular notification that the allies have determined
that "General Napoleon Bonaparte" shall be kept in custody
at the island of St. Helena, and that all foreign vessels are to
be excluded from the island while he shall be so kept. In
the convention St. Helena had been named as a place where
our vessels should be allowed to touch for refreshment.
These details respecting the convention are already so tedious
that I will not trouble you with my own separate discussions
here since it was completed. The negroes, the Indians, and
the fisheries are all breeding subjects, and what they may
finally breed I shall leave for your conjecture. I sent you
nearly a month since a letter from Commodore Decatur,
which I concluded was a copy of his circular of 1 1 July. My
first impression of the peace with Algiers was unfavorable.
I was something of Sir John FalstafPs mind, "I did not like
that paying back.'''' The gallant Commodore says nothing
of it in his circular, and he has in a great measure reconciled
me to his treaty. Last evening I received a letter from Mr.
Jackson 1 at Paris, inclosing a copy of one dated 31 August
1 Henry Jackson, American charge d'affaires.
idi5J JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 417
from Mr. Jones, our Consul at Tripoli, to Mr. Cathalan at
Marseilles. Bainbridge was then in the Mediterranean in
the Independence, with upwards of 20 sail under his com-
mand, and they have carried it with as high a hand with
Tunis and Tripoli as with Algiers. Half the squadron is to
remain in the Mediterranean to preserve the good faith of
the Barbary powers, which without some such guaranty the
total abolition of tribute and presents might be apt to
stagger.
They are settling the affairs of France much to the satis-
faction of the people here. They say that Louis le Desire
has taken a Russian ministry, but notwithstanding the pro-
tection of Alexander, they have dismembered the kingdom of
his protege. Alexander proclaimed principles, but he finished
by listening to expedients. The poor Musee Napoleon. It
was a pitiful robbery in the French to take these baubles, and
now it is pitiful robbery in the magnanimous allies to take
them in their turn. I speak it with due submission to all
the heroic robbers of all parties. It is all a bagatelle, though
I dare say the French had rather part with Alsace than with
the Apollo, and will disgorge Lorraine more readily than the
Laocoon.
I have barely space left to request you to present my kind
remembrance to Mr. Lawrence l and to believe me ever your
friend, etc.2
1 John L. Lawrence, secretary of legation at Stockholm.
• Russell's reply is in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, XLIV. 327.
418
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
TO JOHN ADAMS "
Boston House, Ealing, 24 November, 18 15.
My Dear Sir:
Colonel Aspinwall,2 who arrived here a few days since
and delivered to me your two kind favors of October 13th,
informs me that he had the pleasure of seeing you at that
time, and that you were then suffering with an inflamma-
tion of the eyes. Nearly at the same time my own eyes,
which have long been very weak, were afflicted with so
violent an inflammation as to threaten little less than a total
extinction of the sight. It has now partially subsided, but
has left them still so weak that I am in a great degree yet
unable either to read or write without assistance. I am
therefore obliged to employ the eyes and hands of my best
friend to answer your letter.
Mr. John C. Gray and Mr. Reynolds, who were fellow
passengers with Colonel Aspinwall in the Galen, have also
delivered the letters which you entrusted to them. Since
our removal to this distance from the city, and more par-
ticularly since I have been so much confined by my indisposi-
tion, I have been still more unable to see and to pay proper
attention to my countrymen who bring letters of introduc-
tion to me from my friends than before.
As to the economical system of our government, which
proves so strong a bar to the hospitality of their ministers
abroad, I have never been disposed to complain of it when
I have known the terms upon which they chose to be served,
and have had the option of accepting or declining them;
but from the time when I was ordered to repair from Russia
1 The letter is in the writing of Mrs. Adams.
: Thomas Aspinwall (1786-1876), United States Consul at London, 1815-1853.
i8i5l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 419
to Gothenburg upon the pacific negotiation until this day,
I have not enjoyed even that privilege. I am left in uncer-
tainty whether the extraordinary and very heavy expenses
forced upon me by the necessary duties of that service will
be allowed me, and even whether an outfit upon this present
mission will be denied me. Under these circumstances I
have been compelled to ask a decision which may relieve
me from the embarrassment brought upon me by this ex-
traordinary course of proceeding. I am waiting for an
answer to my repeated solicitations upon this subject, and
unless the allowances are made to which I consider myself
in rigorous justice entitled, I hope at an early period to be
replaced in this mission, and to return to my native country
the ensuing spring.
Your account of the review of the first division of Mas-
sachusetts militia has given me pleasure. I wish for the
credit of my beloved country that the Massachusetts militia
had shown itself to more advantage at the time, when there
was something more to be gone through than the operations
of a review. The navy proved itself the friend in need; but
the militia, with a commander-in-chief who looked across
the Atlantic for the bulwark of our holy religion, hardly
made good its title to wear an American uniform.
I will write you again as soon as I shall have the use of
my eyes. The boys are all at school, and George studies
Greek to your heart's content.
Yours etc.
42o THE WRITINGS OF [1815
TO SILVANUS BOURNE
London, 28 November, 181 5.
Dear Sir:
I have recently received your favor of the loth instant.
The annual expense of educating a youth at Harvard Uni-
versity cannot, I think, be estimated at less than three hun-
dred dollars, and with proper economy will not much exceed
that sum. The character of the establishment is at this
time very high, and the number of the students greater than
it has ever been before. The foundations of several new
professorships have been recently added to the previous
institutions, and several important benefactions have con-
tributed to enlarge the sphere of usefulness of that seminary.
I am not certain that I perfectly understand the object
of your request for a list of the authors in various branches
of literature to which I might think it would be advisable
to your son to give his attention, whether you were desirous
of having a list of the books which are studied at the college,
or of those which may be used as subsidiary to the exercises
of the class. The students at Harvard are now so closely
plied with exercises that those of them who enter heartily
into the pursuit are sufficiently occupied with the books that
are put into their hands, and have not much leisure left for
further other voluntary and excursive studies. The choice
of authors whom I should recommend to the perusal of a
young man would depend very much upon his own turn of
mind, upon his taste and inclination. If he be of a studious
turn I should say, with the adviser of such a young gentle-
man in Shakespeare, "study what you most affect." If
his taste were my own, I would refer him to the advice of
Horace :
i8i51 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 421
Vos exemplaria Graeca
Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna.1
The classics, Greek and Roman, would absorb so great a
portion of his leisure that for the remainder he might freely
follow his own inclination in the selection of the writers in
the modern languages whom he might choose to place in
company with them. For the studies of mathematics,
natural and experimental philosophy, metaphysics and
polite literature, the best books are the school books. A
student in the law school should, indeed, have a broad foun-
dation laid in the principles of moral philosophy. Watts'
Logic and Locke's Treatise on the Human Understanding are
class books at Harvard University. After they have been
properly mastered I should advise the perusal of all the
writings of Plato and of the philosophical treatises of Cicero.
His rhetorical writings and all his orations are no less essen-
tial to form that combination of reasoning, of persuasion,
and of elegant composition, which alone can constitute an
accomplished lawyer. I say nothing of the black-letter sages
which must fill their places in the head as well as upon the
shelves of the practical counsellor and attorney, characters
which in our country are usually combined in the same per-
son. The common and the statute law present of themselves
a library to the examination and meditation of the student
capable of appalling the student heart and of extinguishing
the most ardent thirst for science. These, however, are not
to be encountered until after the collegiate career is con-
cluded, and are neither necessary nor useful, except to per-
sons destined to the law as a practical profession. The prin-
cipal writers on the subject of general and national law are
Grotius, Puffendorff, Cumberland, Barbeyrac, and Montes-
1 De Arte Poetica.
422
THE WRITINGS OF [i8iS
quieu, Burlamaqui, Vattel, Ward, and Martens. The sub-
ject is more comprehensively and more scientifically treated
by Wolf than by any of them, but his work has never been
translated from the Latin in which it was written, and al-
though perhaps the most valuable of them all to be con-
sulted for the clear and systematic deduction of principles,
yet from the abstruse and almost mathematical form which
he has adopted, it has been consigned to almost total ob-
livion; while his plagiary, Vattel, has become in a manner a
manual for statesmen and diplomatists. The collections of
treaties, ancient and modern, are so numerous and so volu-
minous that I scarcely know how to distinguish any of them
by a special recommendation. The modern collections can
alone be of much use for a man of business in any practical
line of life. There is one in French by Martens, and two
English ones, which go by the names of Jenkinson and
Chalmers. They contain only a few treaties to which Great
Britain was a party, but they are remarkable by a discourse
upon the conduct of Great Britain towards neutral powers,
written by the Lord Liverpool, and endeavoring to justify
some of the numerous injustices in which the varying policy
of the British government has involved this nation in its
relations with the rest of the world. A more particular
answer to your inquiries might run this letter into a book-
seller's catalogue; but there is one book which I would rec-
ommend to your son, and which may serve as a substitute
for any further detail from me; it is Tablettes Chronologiques
of Lenglet-Dufresnoy l in two volumes. It contains among
other things a list of the books necessary for the study of
history and in the preliminary discourse, a very precise cal-
culation of the number of days necessary to be devoted to
the perusal of them.
1 Nicolas Lenglet du Fresnoy.
1815] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 423
The collection of books recommended by him relates
only to history, and if your son in reading it over should be
alarmed at the multitude of authors which it brings to
view, and in utter consternation in reflecting that these in-
numerable volumes form but a small part of the writers of a
single branch of polite literature, he may perhaps derive
from it the useful and consolatory lesson of circumscribing
his desires and limiting his ambition even in the pursuit of
science. I am etc.
TO WILLIAM EUSTIS
London, 29 November, 181 5.
Dear Sir:
I duly received your obliging favor of the 8th September
by Mr. Langdon, a reply to which was at first delayed by
the information of your expedition to Bruxelles to attend
the inauguration, and afterwards by an inflammation in my
eyes which seriously threatened me with the loss of one of
them, and from which I am not yet entirely recovered.
Nothing, however, of material importance has occurred in
the interval. A number of very ridiculous reports are from
time to time circulated here to keep up the impression of a
speedy renewal of hostilities between the United States and
this country; but although the disposition on both sides is
nothing else than friendly, and by no means so pacific as I
could wish; and although occurrences of an irritating nature
have taken place and others may be yet expected, I willingly
persuade myself that the prospects of peace between the
two countries are more favorable than they were when I
wrote you last. Colonel Nicholls' treaty, offensive and defen-
sive, with the Creek Indians has been explicitly, though only
424 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
verbally, disavowed. Captain Lock's warning to our coast
fishermen not to approach within sixty miles of the shores
of the British possessions has also been disavowed, but the
determination to deprive us of the coast fishery is asserted
in a manner so peremptory that I think no other resource
will be left for maintaining our right to it than that to which
you say that New England will resort, and is of herself com-
petent. It has been stated not to have been the intention to
disturb our fishermen the present year, and excepting in the
case of the warning in which the officer so far transcended
his authority, as I am assured, they have, I believe, not been
interrupted; but we are to beware of the next summer, and
hereafter, if we intend to hold our right as valid, we must be
prepared to maintain it by force. Early in the course of the
summer the British government determined to maintain
and to increase their naval armaments on the Canadian
lakes. This very significant measure appears to have been
understood by our government, who have properly taken
the hint and determined upon corresponding armaments on
our side. I have no official notice from this quarter that
any umbrage has been taken at this course of proceeding,
but the ministerial papers have expressed great dissatisfac-
tion with it, and are highly incensed that the Americans
should presume to have armed merely because the British
had begun to arm before them; since it must be self-evident
that the British armaments could be destined to no other
purposes than those of defence. I hope nevertheless that
we shall be permitted to enjoy a few years of tranquillity,
as the state of our finances most particularly requires. The
extent of the disorder in which they were unhappily in-
volved is but too fully disclosed by the length of time which
has already elapsed since the peace, without affording them
the relief which it was expected they would derive from that
i8i51 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 425
event. I dare say you have had from the managers of our
money concerns at Amsterdam more than one serious ad-
monition of the heavy pressure upon them there. It is only
within these few days that I have been gratified with the
information that remittances are making from the Treasury
sufficient to cover all the arrears, and to provide for the
demands which will accrue at the commencement of the
year for the interest of the Louisiana loan, both here and in
Holland. The Secretary of the Treasury expresses the fullest
confidence that no further arrears will arise, and no further
embarrassments be experienced to provide in ample time
for the future payments; but I am concerned to see that our
six per cent stocks have been very recently sold here for
eighty-four per cent, and I have observed in a Boston news-
paper of the 13 October, that Treasury bills had been sold
there the day before at public auction for eighty-seven and
five-eighths. One great cause of the difficulties of the govern-
ment has been the very improper protracted suspension of
specie payments by all the southern banks, an evil of which
I am afraid the termination is not yet at hand. Colonel As-
pinwall arrived here a few days ago with a commission of
consul for the port of London, which will be much more
likely to ruin than to make his fortune. I cannot but hope
the government will make some other provision for him.
I am etc.
426 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
TO WILLIAM . SHALER 1
London, 29 November, 181 5.
Dear Sir:
I have had the pleasure of receiving your favors of 28 July
and of 26 September last, the latter of which mentions that
you had twice written me before from Algiers. One of those
letters, therefore, has not reached me. I feel myself greatly
obliged to you for the valuable information in those which
I have received, which would both have been earlier answered
had I known through what channel a letter could be safely
conveyed to you. Your letters have given me a confidence
in the permanency of our peace with Algiers, of which the
very honorable terms of the treaty which you had concluded
had left me somewhat distrustful. I was apprehensive that
a treaty expressly founded on the principle of exemption
from tribute in every shape would require some sanction
more powerful than the mere signature or promise of a
Barbary chieftain. The presents stipulated in our former
treaty served at least as a guaranty for its continuance,
laid in the interest of the other party; and after the formal
exclusion of this motive for good faith, it seemed important
that some other sanction should be discovered as substitute
for it, and this, I thought, could be found only in our energy
or in their weakness. From the very particular statement
you have given of the force with which in the event of a re-
newed contest we should have to cope, I strongly flatter
myself that the interest of fear will operate as a sanction
still more durable for the faithful observance of your treaty,
than the interest of cupidity proved to be for that of the
compact negotiated by Colonel Humphreys and Mr. Bar-
1 United States Consul at Algiers.
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 427
low. At all events I hope and trust that the great and
memorable example given by our transactions in the Mediter-
ranean during the present year will serve as the fundamental
law for all our relations with the Barbary powers hereafter.
I have been informed by a letter from Mr. McCall that
Commodores Bainbridge and Decatur, with the squadron
under their respective commands, have returned to the
United States, and that only two frigates and two sloops of
war commanded by Captain Shaw, have been left in the
Mediterranean. There is reason to apprehend that the dis-
patch vessel by which you sent the treaty with Algiers to
America has been lost. It is stated in the last accounts
which we have from the United States, at the latter end of
October, that she had passed the Straits of Gibraltar on the
12 July and had not since then been heard of. Whatever
rumors you may have heard of or seen in European papers,
and whatever the conversation of the consuls at Algiers may
be about speculations of the European powers relative to the
Barbary states, you may be confidently assured that if any-
thing is ever done resulting from such speculations, it will
be in consequence of what the United States have done of
the system now first adopted by them, of refusing all further
payment of tribute. Should we persevere in this policy and
inflexibly maintain it as we ought, I do not despair of wit-
nessing as virtuous an indignation against the oppressions
and cruelty of the Barbary pirates, and as earnest and evi-
dent a zeal for their abolition in this land of liberty, human-
ity, and generosity, as we now see operating against the
slave trade, and I do not doubt that the same spirit will then
be equally eager in urging all other nations to join in the
extirpation of this shameful tyranny, and equally ready to
arrogate all the merit of exploding it. In this case, as in that
of the slave trade, the remarkable feature which will char-
428 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
acterize British exertion will be disinterestedness, and if it
be discovered that the American commerce can be freely
carried on in the Mediterranean without being subject to the
tax of tribute to the pirates, a sudden spasm of philanthropy
will immediately seize the British bosom for imparting the
same benefits to itself, and perhaps even to the traders of
other nations. Let us then hold the Bashaws and the
Divans, the Beys and the Deys, stubbornly to the execution
of their treaties, and let us hear no more of tribute in any
shape. But it is sufficient for us to exempt ourselves from
these humiliations, and to leave the commerce of Europe to
the protection and policy of its own governments. The final
treaties of peace between the allies and France were signed
on the 20th instant. Europe is once more in profound and
universal peace. How long this state of things is destined to
continue is not easily to be foreseen. It is a tranquillity
reposing altogether upon the establishment in substance of
martial law throughout France, and the armies of all Europe
are the conservators of the peace.
I am, etc.
TO JOHN THORNTON KIRKLAND
Ealing near London, 30 November, 18 15.
Dear Sir:
Mr. W. C. Bond,1 sometime in the month of September,
delivered to me your obliging favor of the 23 of June, im-
mediately after which I accompanied him to Greenwich
with the purpose of introducing him to the Astronomer
Royal, Mr. Pond.2 It happened, however, unfortunately
1 William Cranch Bond (1789-1859), astronomer.
2 John Pond (1767-1836).
i8i51 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 429
that this gentleman when we called at the observatory was
not at home. I was obliged to return myself the same even-
ing to my own house, and Mr. Bond remained at Greenwich
with the intention of calling on the Astronomer Royal the
same evening, or the next morning, to deliver to him your
letter and that of Professor Farrar.1 I have not since that
time had the pleasure of seeing or of hearing from Mr. Bond,
but I have no doubt but he obtained from Mr. Pond all the
information concerning the object of his visit which he could
desire. I should have been happy to have given him every
other assistance in my power, not only because he came
furnished with your recommendation, but because I felt high
gratification at the purpose which you have now undertaken
of erecting an observatory at Cambridge. If in this, or any
other object connected with the venerable institution over
which you preside, I can during my residence in this country
render you any service whatever, I flatter myself that you
will not only freely require it, but that I shall receive every
command from you to that effect as a favor. It gave me
pleasure to learn that the small parcel of books which I
transmitted from St. Petersburg in the year 18 10 and pre-
sented for the use of the University were duly received.
Count John Potocki's dissertation on chronology, is little
more than an index to a large and important work which
he has not yet published. It contains some new and in-
teresting observations, but I am afraid that his professed
object of reducing ancient chronology within principles
which may include it in the class of the exact sciences must
be considered as a desperate undertaking.
I very cordially unite with you in the hope that the peace
which has been restored between the land of our nativity and
1 John Farrar (1779-1853), Hollis professor of mathematics and natural philoso-
phy in Harvard University.
43°
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
the land of our forefathers may be equally beneficial and
lasting.
After an unexpected and violent convulsion, all Europe is
once more restored to peace. It is, however, hardly to be
expected that this will for any length of time be universal.
The controversy between ancient establishments and modern
opinions, between prejudice and innovation, is far from being
settled. At the present moment the struggle of Europe is to
return to the politics and the religion of the 15th century.
The divine right of kings is reestablished in France under
the name of legitimacy and under the guaranty of all the
monarchies, and all the armies of Europe; and one of its
first and most natural effects has been the renewal of a St.
Bartholomew massacre of Protestants under the auspices of
His Most Christian Majesty's authority. The temporal
dominion of the Pope, the tender mercies of the Inquisition,
and the meek simplicity of the Jesuits, have been restored
for the benefit of social order and are flourishing in all their
pristine glory. They are protected by the combinations of
sovereigns which has at length triumphed over the revolu-
tionary principle, and by upwards of a million of soldiers,
whose bayonets have dictated the political settlement of
European affairs which is now denominated the geaeral
peace. But the revolutionary principle, though vanquished,
is not subdued; all the arrangements of the present time are
to be supported by a military force alone. In the laws now
given to France all the principles of civil liberty and of na-
tional independence are equally trampled under foot. If in
these transactions the allies have meted out to France only
the same measure which she had dealt to them, if they have
only taken an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, they
may, perhaps, have some color for pleading the law of re-
taliation; but in glutting their vengeance for the wrongs
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 431
which they have received, can it be doubted that they are
laying up stores of wrath for the day of wrath in revenge for
those which they are inflicting? In truth the foundation
upon which the present peace of Europe is professedly laid
is in its nature weak and treacherous. I cannot persuade
myself that it will be durable; but whatever may be its fate,
I cherish the hope that our own country will not be involved
in the vicissitudes of its fortunes. I learn with the highest
satisfaction the flourishing condition of our Alma Mater,
and remain with great respect and attachment, dear Sir, etc.
TO ABIGAIL ADAMS
Ealing near London, 5 December, 181 5.
My Dear Mother:
The only letters that I have had the pleasure of receiving
from you since I wrote you last are those of the 6th and 12th
of October, both of which came by the Galen. The latest
preceding one was dated on the 30th of August, so that I
am still waiting for your September letters. Although I
have not yet entirely recovered the use of my eyes, and must
still write you by the hand of my wife, I have nevertheless
perused Mr. Channing's remarks on Dr. Worcester's second
letter to him.1 There is at least this advantage attending
upon the evils of controversy, that it sharpens the weapons
of the combatants and improves their skill. The third
pamphlet of Mr. Channing appears to me much superior to
anything that I have read of his before, and although I think
that both his logic and his learning upon the subject in dis-
cussion are yet susceptible of great improvement, yet I am
inclined to believe that the continuance of the contest would
1 Printed in Boston, 1815.
432
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
be the most effectual means of raising him as far above his
present publications as this surpasses his letter to Mr.
Thacher.1 The charge brought forward in the review of
American Unitarianism against the clergymen styling them-
selves liberal in Boston and its vicinity, was not simply of
not deviating from the doctrines of the Trinity, but of with-
holding and in some degree dissembling their real opinions
upon the subject. Against this charge Mr. Channing was
in his first publication indignant perhaps to excess. That
there was some foundation for it is not only proved by the
indisputable testimony produced in the Panoplist, but has
long been well known personally to me. Mr. Channing very
forcibly and somewhat angrily disclaims the Unitarianism
of Mr. Belsham and Dr. Priestley. This I have no doubt
be could very honestly do for himself, but certain it is that
this very Unitarianism had infected others more than they
were ever willing to avow, and more than I believe compati-
ble with any system of real Christianity.
That the Athanasian Trinity is clearly contained in the
Scriptures I have not been able to convince my own mind
beyond a question; but if I must choose between that and
the belief that Christ was a mere man, to be compared with
Socrates, and must mutilate the New Testament to suit the
critical scruples of Dr. Priestley in order to maintain this
creed, I have no hesitation in making my choice. I find in
the New Testament Jesus Christ accosted in his own pres-
ence by one of His disciples as God without disclaiming the
appellation. I see him explicitly declared by at least two
other of the Apostles to be God, expressly and repeatedly
announced, not only as having existed before the worlds,
but as the Creator of the worlds without beginning of days
1 Utter to S. C. Thacher, on the Aspersions in a late Number of the Panoplist, on
the Ministers of Boston. 1815.
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 433
or end of years. I see him named in the great prophecy of
Isaiah concerning him the mighty God! and I cannot be en-
tirely satisfied to be told that one of the expressions is merely
a figure, that another may be an interpolation, and a third
is not perhaps correctly translated; nor yet, as I am told
by Mr. Channing, that solitary texts collected here and
there may be found in the Bible to support any doctrine
whatsoever. The texts are too numerous, they are from
parts of the Scriptures too diversified, they are sometimes
connected by too strong a chain of argument, and the infer-
ences from them are to my mind too direct and irresistible,
to admit of the explanations which the Unitarians sometimes
attempt to give them, or of the evasions by which at others
they endeavor to escape from them. It is true the Scriptures
do not use the term persons where they countenance the
doctrine of the Trinity, and perhaps it may be difficult,
perhaps impossible, to give a definition of the term person
which shall solve the mystery, or save to human reason the
apparent inconsistency of an identity in three and one. But
can the Unitarian give a more intelligible definition of the
term one as applied to the Deity? Is his God infinite? Is
he omnipresent? Is he eternal? And if so what precise idea
can he form of unity, without bounds or dimensions? For
my part the term one necessarily implies to me the limits or
bounds within which that one is included, and beyond which
it is not. How then can number be applicable to the idea
of God any more than time or space? It is therefore as diffi-
cult for me to conceive that God should be one, as that he
should be three, or three in one. How it can be, I know not;
but in either hypothesis the idea of God is to me equally
incomprehensible. The question, therefore, is not whether
the doctrines of the Trinity be incomprehensible, but whether
it be contained in the Scriptures. You say that you are an
454 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
Unitarian according to the creed of Dr. Clarke, and Mr.
Channing intimates the same of himself, and of our liberal
Christians in general; now, although I have read the Bible
I have not read Dr. Clarke, and therefore will take the sub-
stance of his creed as stated by Mr. Channing. He says that
"Doctor Clarke believed that the Father alone is the Su-
preme God, and that Jesus Christ is not the supreme God,
but derived his being and all power and honor from the
Father, even from an act of the Father's power and will.
He maintains that as the Scriptures have not taught us the
manner in which the son derived his existence from the
Father, it is presumptuous to affirm that the son was created,
or that there was a time when he did not exist. " Now this
creed contains as complete an inconsistency as trinity in
unity. How could Jesus Christ derive his being from the
Father without being created ? And if he existed before all
time, how could he derive his being at all? According to this
creed Jesus Christ might exist before he had his being, and
Dr. Clarke escapes from the Trinity, only to plunge himself
into a contradiction in terms equally unintelligible.
I hope that if this controversy is to be continued, the dis-
cussion will turn more upon the doctrine and run less into
personalities. Mr. Channing's great fear seems to be, that
the craft is in danger, that the reputation of the liberal
clergymen will be impaired, and even that they may perhaps
be driven from their pulpits. There is on the Trinitarian
side of this contest rather too much acrimony, but in the
proposition of a separation of communions between the
adherents of the two creeds, I do not perceive the danger to
our religious liberties which Mr. Channing and the laymen
so vehemently dread, nor the advancement of the views of
the church philosophic, which my father intimates in his
letter to Dr. Morse. I am rather inclined to expect that our
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 435
liberal clergymen, as they choose to style themselves, will
find it necessary to be more explicit in the full avowal of
their opinions, and for that purpose to be better prepared
to give a reason for the faith that is in them. That above all,
they will universally shake off the Unitarianism of Socinus
and Priestley, and settle their belief concerning the person
and character of Jesus Christ on a firmer and more solid
basis than the clod of human mortality.
I trust that neither you nor my father will think that I
am presuming to offer you anything new in support of
Athanasianism. My own opinions on this subject have re-
sulted solely from the impression of the Scriptures upon my
own mind: the very little of controversy that I have read
relating to it has rather tended to confirm than weaken that
impression. In the management of this controversy I have
not had occasion to admire the Christian temper of the op-
ponents on either side; if the Trinitarians have always abused
of their strength, their adversaries have always been too
ready to resort to the artifices of weakness. You will see
in the memoirs of the life of Dr. Price x that that worthy
man was offended with the affectation with which Dr. Priest-
ley and his sectaries arrogated to themselves exclusively the
appellation of Unitarians. There is certainly something dis-
ingenuous in it, inasmuch as it implies that the Trinitarians
are not Unitarians, and insinuates that they believe in a
plurality of gods. There is something of a similar spirit in
the epithet of liberal clergymen which our anti-Trinitarians
appear disposed to appropriate to themselves. The same
misuse of the term orthodoxy must perhaps be charged upon
their antagonists.
Why is it not possible that Dr. Morse, and Dr. Worcester,
Mr. Channing, and Dr. Kirkland, the laymen, and Dr. Free-
1 By William Morgan.
436 THE WRITINGS OF [i8iS
man, should hold a conversation together, in which the
nature of the Deity and of the person and character of
Jesus Christ should be discussed, with as much calmness
and good humor as the Stoic, the Academic, and the Epi-
curean converse upon the nature of the gods in Cicero?
But enough of theological disputes. Our political dis-
sensions, if they are as angry and violent in words as were
those of Cicero's time, they are thank Heaven not so san-
guinary. It gives me great pleasure to observe that the
spirit of party, which during the war had become so virulent
and dangerous, has already in so great a degree subsided.
In the general character of the elections throughout the
country since the peace, there appears to have been little
material change; but as the objects of contention which
threatened the very existence of the union have passed
away, I natter myself that the spirit of party, however it may
continue to feel the necessity of lashing itself into fury, will
at least have no attainable objects that can be materially
detrimental to our country. . . .
TO ALEXANDER HILL EVERETT
London, 6 December, 1815.
Dear Sir:
• ••••••
I have been much edified by the philosophical and benevo-
lent reflections which your visit to Bruxelles and the in-
auguration, or coronation, combined with the field of Water-
loo excited in your mind. They appear to me to be far
preferable to the poetical inspiration which Air. Walter
Scott found, or at least went to seek, upon the aforesaid field.
I have heard and read something before about a week at
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 437
Bruxelles, and a famous tree where the hero who was then
bankrupting a nation's gratitude is said to have remained,
though not to have reposed, during a part of the first day's
action. The ancient sage philosopher in Hudibras could
prove, you know, that the world was made of fighting and of
love, and I cannot imagine any means so effectual for pro-
moting your project of perpetual peace as an enactment of
an universal law, that the shelter of the tree of Waterloo
shall henceforth be exclusively reserved for the Belle Alliance
which was sheltered by the tree of Nivelle.
There was nearly a century ago a poor French abbe named
St. Pierre who published in three volumes a project for per-
petual peace between the powers of Europe, which he sent
to Cardinal Fleury, whose dear delight was peace. The
Cardinal's answer to him was, "Vous avez oublie, Monsieur,
pour article preliminaire de commencer par envoyer une
troupe de missionaires pour disposer le cceur et l'esprit des
princes." This little difficulty suggested by the Cardinal
still subsists, and if in the pursuit of your plan you should
avoid committing the Abbe's error and send your troop of
missionaries, there would still be the chance whether they
might be all gifted with the power of persuasion sufficient
to insure their success; besides the possibility that the mis-
sionaries themselves might require a second band of pacific
apostles to keep them faithful to their duty. But not to
trifle upon so serious a subject: peace on earth and good will
to men was proclaimed nearly two thousand years since by
one with whose authority no human power is to be compared.
It was not only proclaimed, but the means of maintaining
it were fully and most explicitly furnished to mankind.
This authority is acknowledged and its precepts are recog-
nized as obligatory by all those who exhibited the practical
comment upon it in the field of Waterloo. It is most em-
438 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
phatically acknowledged by the most Christian personages
who are yet commenting on it in the dungeons of the Spanish
Inquisition and in the butcheries of Nismes.
With these results of the Holy War for the preservation of
social order and religion yet glaring before me I cannot prom-
ise you very speedy success in the laudable purpose of erad-
icating the seeds of discord from the human heart. But if
in your disappointment you stand in need of consolation,
I recommend to your meditations the theory of the ingenious
Mr. Malthus. He, perhaps, may prove to your satisfac-
tion that the real misfortune of Europe is to be overburdened
with population, or if he should fail in that, he may at least
convince you that the population of Europe is neither more
nor less for such fields as that of Waterloo. The number of
officers who gloriously fell upon that memorable day made
no chasm in the military establishment of the conquerors.
The London Gazette within ten days afterwards filled up all
the vacancies which that day had made in the British army,
and Mr. Malthus insists that it is precisely the same with
the process of population; that where one mouth is removed,
another will immediately be produced to take its place. If
this theory be just, you might perhaps find occasion to re-
consider the project of perpetual peace, even if it should be
practicable; for it would be necessary to take into the account
the mass of glory which you would deprive so many heroes
of acquiring in exchange for their worthless lives, and also
the immense multitudes of little candidates for existence
whom you would cruelly debar from the possibility of com-
ing into life. It would be a sort of murder of the innocents
that would out-Herod Herod.
I am informed that in this letter there is a mixture of
solidity and levity which makes it proper to bring it to a
conclusion. I have as yet no answer from the government
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 439
to the proposal which I made for an exchange which would
give me the benefit of your assistance,1 but I have intima-
tions from a private source that a different arrangement has
been made. I shall regret the circumstance on my own ac-
count, though in the present condition of my eyes it will
probably be an advantageous one to you. I wrote last week
to Mr. Eustis and beg to be remembered kindly to him now,
being with the highest regard and esteem, etc.
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 23. [James Monroe]
London, 14th December, 1815.
Sir:
Mr. John A. Smith 2 arrived here on the 9th instant, with
a commission as secretary of the legation of the United
States at this court. I had not the pleasure of receiving any
dispatches from you by him; but the day after his arrival
Messrs. Alexander Glennie, Son and Company sent me a
letter from Mr. Pleasanton, dated on the 26th of July last,
inclosing the protest of the master of the schooner Baltimore,
a vessel taken during the late war by the boats of several
British men-of-war within the jurisdiction of Spain. Mr.
Pleasanton adds an instruction by your order to apply di-
rectly to the British government for redress to the sufferers.
This will accordingly be done; but I beg leave to observe
that during my residence here I have had numerous ap-
plications from citizens of the United States for my official
interposition to obtain from the British government restitu-
1 As secretary of legation.
1 John Adams Smith.
44Q
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
tion or indemnity for losses or injuries sustained during the
late war upon various occasions, and several of them pre-
cisely of the same nature as the case of the Baltimore, in so
far as relates to the violation of the neutral jurisdiction.
In one instance, the case of the William and Mary, taken last
February within the harbor of Cadiz and condemned at
Gibraltar, I have applied to the Spanish Ambassador, re-
questing his authority to the correspondents of the American
owners here to enter an appeal from the sentence of the
Admiralty Court at Gibraltar. Upon this the Ambassador
has written for instructions to his court and is now waiting
for their answer. Another case is that of the Nanina, Cap-
tain Barnard, belonging to the House of John B. Murray
and Son of New York, in which I have approved of the entry
of an appeal from the sentence of the Admiralty Court at
this place. A third case was that of the Brig Hope, Obed
Chase master, taken at Buenos Ayres. The Spanish Am-
bassador declined authorizing an appeal in this case, upon
the principle that the colony was in a state of insurrection
at the time of the capture, and that according to the Spanish
laws no foreign vessel would have been admitted at Buenos
Ayres or consequently liable to capture there. I have in
none of these cases thought it advisable or proper without
special instructions from you to make application for satis-
faction to the sufferers to this government. The positive
and peremptory refusal by the British government at the
negotiations of Ghent to make reparation for any of the
wrongs committed by their officers during the war, however
contrary to the laws of war, had fully convinced me that
every diplomatic application for any such reparation would
not only be utterly hopeless of success, but rather tend to
make the refusal of redress certain in cases when a private
application from the individual interested might have some
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 441
chance of standing alone, and addressed merely to the sense
of equity or of humanity of this government, of being lis-
tened to more favorably. The cases of capture by British
armed ships of American vessels under the shelter of neutral
jurisdiction were very numerous and occurred I believe in
every quarter of the globe. I have to request therefore your
instructions whether, after making application in the case
of the Baltimore, it is to be renewed in others of a similar
nature upon which the parties interested have already
solicited or may hereafter solicit my interference. The in-
closed letter for Captain Trenchard 1 of the United States
Navy was sent me with a particular request that it might
be safely transmitted to him. It is from a person supposing
himself to be his relative and desirous of ascertaining the
fact.
I have the honor, etc.
TO JONATHAN RUSSELL
Ealing near London, 14 December, 181 5.
Dear Sir:
Your favor of the 31st October has been some days re-
ceived, but the course of my correspondence has been for
several weeks obstructed by a severe inflammation of the
eyes, from which I am just now recovering. The commer-
cial convention between the United States and this country,
signed on the 3rd of July last, has been received in America,
where no small impatience has been manifested for its
publication. Party spirit appears very anxious to lay hold
of it; but when it comes out, it will be found a bone too bare
and dry to be gnawed with any sort of satisfaction. The
1 Edward Trenchard (1784-1824).
442 THE WRITINGS OF [i8i5
occlusion of the island of St. Helena, so cavalierly announced
in the face of the stipulation of free access to it, may afford
some materials for declamation; but in my own opinion the
best answer to it is, that if from nothing you take nothing,
there remains as much after the operation as there was before
it. Admission at the Cape of Good Hope is also stipulated
in the convention and therefore cannot be granted as an
equivalent for it. Although I am not inclined to set any
more value upon this convention than I was when it was
signed, yet it is here represented as containing enormous
and most impolitic concessions by the British government
to the United States, and what may appear to you a little
singular is that these representations come from the quarter
of the opposition. There has been for nearly three months
a series of papers published in the Morning Chronicle written,
with very considerable ability and a knowledge of the sub-
ject sufficient for an artful and elaborate misrepresentation
of facts and an insidious perversion of argument, to prove
that this most innocent convention has made many highly
important and unwarrantable sacrifices of the British com-
mercial interests to the Americans. These articles serve at
least to show the prevailing current of opinions and senti-
ments in this country towards America. On the ministerial
side scarcely any attempt at a defence has been made, and a
few occasional paragraphs, which have in a manner [been]
forced from the journalists, have been either unblushing de-
nials that any such convention had been made, or untoward
assertions in general terms, that it contained no concessions
whatsoever. I told you that from the first beginning of the
negotiation there was a flat and dry refusal to treat upon
the subject of the admission of our vessels to any of their
possessions in the West Indies, and I have since seen in the
newspapers a letter from Lord Bathurst to the governor of
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 443
one of the islands, dated 22nd of May, three days before my
arrival in London, and while Mr. Clay and Mr. Gallatin
were negotiating, in which the governor was censured for
having admitted American vessels, and notified that the
navigation laws were to be carried into rigorous execution.
As we did not agree upon any article concerning our inter-
course with their northern possessions on the American con-
tinent, it was also understood that they reckoned upon carry-
ing it all on in the British vessels. This however will depend
altogether upon ourselves. If Congress are of my mind,
they will try a little the effect of exclusion on our side too.
But the fur trade! the fur trade! Mr. Clay and Mr. Gal-
latin had been told that as an equivalent for the trade to the
East Indies some accommodation would be expected on the
part of the United States, such as for instance in the fur
trade. Not that the British government took much interest
particularly in that, but it was mentioned merely by way of
illustration. The refusal on our part was as flat and dry in
this case as theirs was about the West India trade. It was
said that if by the fur trade it was meant to imply an inter-
course with the Indians within our territory, we were ex-
pressly prohibited by our instructions from assenting to it,
and that this prohibition was founded not upon commercial
but upon political considerations. We were not pressed upon
this subject, and the refusal was taken apparently with
better grace than I should have expected. I am neverthe-
less convinced that it closed the door against everything in
the spirit of accommodation upon the other side, and this
is the very point upon which the opposition written in the
Morning Chronicle casts the bitterest reproaches upon the
ministers. I think we shall have more of this matter here-
after, and that whenever we may have an object of any im-
portance upon which we shall expect compliance on their
444
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
part, it will be given us to understand that a fair way of
obtaining it will be by some reciprocal compliance in the
relation to the fur trade.
The lakes of Canada may be considered as having in the
late war made their debut upon the political scene. They
are, if I mistake not, destined at no distant period to per-
form upon that theatre a still more conspicuous part. Very
early in the summer the British government determined to
maintain and increase in the midst of peace their naval
armaments upon them. It appears that our government
thought it necessary to follow the example. It is possible
that if the peace should continue for some years, both parties
may become weary of the expense which it will entail upon
them, and gradually reduce the force which they now propose
to keep up; but should there be an early renewal of hostilities,
as a general presentiment on both sides the Atlantic appears
to anticipate, those lakes will probably be the theatre of
still more desperate conflicts, and, God grant, of as heroic
achievements as they have been during the late war.
The affairs of France as you see are settled. The execu-
tion of Ney and a second project of an amnesty are the most
recent acts of Bourbon legitimacy. Here all is triumph and
exultation; opposition itself has nothing to murmur at but
the convention with America, and the ruinous cheapness of
the necessaries of life. Nay! do not laugh; for the Chancellor
of the Exchequer and the Lords of the Treasury find this a
most serious subject. There is even danger that it may pre-
maturely break down the property tax. If you see Cobbett's
Register you may be amused with his comments upon it;
but I think his alarms are as exaggerated as his remedies
are desperate. . . .
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 445
TO JOHN ADAMS
Boston House, Ealing, 16 December, 1815.
My Dear Sir:
Mr. John A. Smith, Secretary to the Legation of the
United States at the Court of Great Britain, arrived here
last week and delivered to me your favor of 22nd October.
I sincerely wish he may find his new situation as agreeable
and as profitable to himself as he anticipates.
The construction which the British court put upon the
treaties as they relate to the fisheries will be well known to
the government of the United States before you will receive
this letter. They hold that by the laws of nations war dis-
solves all obligations of previous treaties between the parties,
without exception, although they admit that treaties may
and often do contain stipulations irrevocable in their nature,
and therefore not to be affected by a subsequent war. The
acknowledgment of the independence of the United States
contained in the treaties of 1782 and 1783 they consider as
one of these irrevocable concessions; but the liberties con-
nected with the fisheries within the British jurisdiction,
stipulated in the same treaties in favor of the people of the
United States, they view as grants temporary and experi-
mental, entirely cancelled by the war which has intervened
between the two countries, and no longer to be conceded
without an equivalent, or at least without modifications
under which they profess in general terms to be willing to
negotiate for their renewal.
I have seen an able and elaborate argument leading to the
same conclusion in an American newspaper, the author of
which, professing to be an American, considers and labors
with no small subtlety, and a great display of black letter
446 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
lore, to prove that these liberties are irretrievably extin-
guished and lost to us forever. His reasoning, like that of
many of our lawyers who apply their country court logic to
the controversies of nations, is founded almost entirely upon
the principles of British common law and the decisions of
cases reported from the courts of Westminster Hall. The
main hinge of her argument is, that we have forfeited the
right, in consequence of our having been ousted of the pos-
session of this incorporeal hereditament during the war. I
must do the British government the justice to say that in
their view of the subject they have resorted to no such pre-
tence as this: their ground is, that the article in the treaty
was abrogated by the mere fact of the war, and if it is in
justice not a whit more untenable than that of their Yankee
advocate, it is at least more suitable to their character as
statesmen ruling the councils of an empire.
But this subject must ultimately be settled either by nego-
tiation, or by force. I have already told you that the main-
tenance or the recovery of these liberties will depend upon
ourselves alone; if we are content to abandon the right, it
will certainly be taken from us. If we are firm and inflexi-
ble in the assertion of it, we may yet secure it, perhaps with-
out the resort to the ultima ratio. From the temper which
prevailed in New England during the late war, and for
several years preceding it, and which now seems to prevail
even in relation to this question, I am strongly apprehen-
sive that it will be a right to be recovered, rather than a right
uninterruptedly maintained. New England has yet no con-
sciousness of rights, when they are contested by Great
Britain.
I have not been informed when Louis the Desired is to be
consecrated with the miraculous oil from the Sainte Am-
poule. But in the meantime he is making processions in
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 447
honor of the Holy Virgin to the Church of Notre Dame, and
his nephew, the pious Duke of Angouleme, is walking bare
foot with the monks and instigating the butchery of Protes-
tants in the south of France. Such authority is assuredly
not derived from a pigeon. It is much to be regretted that,
in the decay of the monastic orders, the practice of turning
Les Rois Faineants into monks has gone out of fashion. The
house of Bourbon would of itself people a convent, and be
placed in a condition much more suitable to their characters
and capacities, than upon the thrones to which they have
been nailed by the royal hammersmiths of social order and
religion. They have been fixing the fate of Europe again by
treaties of peace in the name of the holy and undivided
Trinity. They have stripped, and robbed, and plundered
France ad libitum for about half a year, as they had already
done once before, and as she had been doing for a number
of years to most of them. In return for the sacrifices of
everything that could give strength, credit, and dignity to
the nation, they have bound themselves to keep the nation
under the blessed yoke of the Bourbons, as fixed and im-
moveable as 150,000 bayonets at the throats of the French
people, and a million more within a whistling distance, can
keep them. This arrangement may last six months, but I
think not three years. Government, whether founded upon
the will of the people, or upon the will of God, never yet had
a durable foundation upon the basis of a foreign and hostile
soldiery.
To call the puppet show now displayed at Paris a legiti-
mate government, is an insult upon human speech, and an
outrage upon the laws of God. It cannot last. France must
be conquered again. France must be dismembered and
scattered to the winds of heaven — or else, Sampson is bound,
his eyes are extinguished, his locks are shorn. But the day
44*
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
may come when his returning vigor will yet shake the pillars
of the temple of Dagon, and if he perish in its fall, will bury
with him all the lords of the Philistines, the worshippers of
the senseless idols in the ruins.
You assure me that I have neither profits nor laurels to
expect, and in sooth my profits here are of the negative kind;
but the garden of Boston House is bordered round with
laurels, and I hope my boys will yet give you proof that
classics and mathematics, as well as a deportment, are as-
siduously taught at Ealing school. They are now coming
home to a vacation for six weeks, and I am happy to assure
you that the Yankee boys have done no dishonor to the
reputation of their country.
I have got Mr. Abraham Tucker's seven volumes of the
Light of Nature ready to send you by the first opportunity
from London, and I hope they will not make you blind, as
they have almost made me. I can get Brucker 1 if you think
him worth nine guineas; but for my part I think all the
philosophy worth having is to be obtained at a cheaper
rate — the philosophy that will never spend a sigh for a
laurel, or a wish for profits, beyond the old Boston Town
Clerk Cooper's modicum of bread and turnips. I am etc.
TO LORD CASTLEREAGH
The undersigned Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary from the United States of America has had
the honor of receiving Lord Castlereagh's note of the 29th
ultimo, informing him that a representation has been made
by the Lord Mayor of London to His Majesty's Principal
Secretary of State for the Home Department, stating that a
1 Johann Jakob Brucker, Historia critica Philosophies, Leipsig, 1767.
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 449
number of American seamen have been found wandering
about the streets of London in a most wretched and dis-
tressed condition, and that several are now supported in the
police establishments and hospitals of the city at a very con-
siderable expense. His Lordship, therefore, requests the
undersigned to take measures in order that these seamen may
be conveyed to their native country with the least possible de-
lay. The undersigned has the honor to inform Lord Castle-
reagh that provision is made by the laws of the United
States for the support and reconveyance to their native
country of destitute and distressed American seamen in
foreign ports, that this provision has been found sufficient
for the purposes for which it was intended in other countries,
and in ordinary circumstances in this; but that within these
few months the number of persons in this condition has been
multiplied beyond all former example, and that this increase
has been principally occasioned by the measures of the
British government; that by far the greatest proportion of
distressed American seamen who have made application
for relief at the consulate of the United States have con-
sisted of persons discharged from the naval service of Great
Britain. Considerable numbers of these had been compelled
to enter the British service by the process of impressment,
others had been induced to enter it by the encouragement
held out to them by the British laws and proclamations.
It is confidently presumed by the undersigned that all, or
nearly all, those whose wretched situation has been repre-
sented by the Lord Mayor of London to His Majesty's gov-
ernment are persons precisely in this predicament. The
undersigned is informed that several hundreds of them have
already been conveyed to the United States at the expense
of the American government, and that about eighty are at
the time receiving their daily subsistence from the American
45o THE WRITINGS OF [1815
consular office. The undersigned would be deficient in his
duty to his country were he to forbear on this occasion to
submit to the consideration of His Majesty's government
that the burden of supporting these men until they can be
restored to their country, and that of conveying them thither,
ought in justice to be borne, not by the American, but by
the British government; and he will add that there are others
whose claim to the equity and humanity of Great Britain
are no less deserving of consideration. He refers to seamen
not perhaps in absolute distress, but who from their long
services, or from wounds received in the British service,
are entitled to small pensions. By the existing regulations
of the navy the undersigned understands that every such
American seaman who returns to his own country is reduced
to the necessity of alienating his annuity for the inadequate
compensation of two or at most three years purchase. The
undersigned flatters himself that the knowledge of these
circumstances being thus communicated, His Majesty's
government will not hesitate to make provision for the re-
conveyance to the United States of all the American seamen
who have been discharged from the British naval service by
the late general paying off of the navy, and for affording the
means to pensioners disabled in their service of receiving
after their return to the United States during their lives the
pensions which have been assigned to them. The under-
signed observes that the representations of the Lord Mayor,
being in terms very general and containing specifically the
name only of one American seaman, he is unable to ascer-
tain the individual Americans represented to be in distress.
The means of designating them are doubtless in possession
of the British government; but it is probable there may be
cases of seamen in a distressed condition who alleged them-
selves to be Americans, when they are not really such.
i8i5] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 451
Should every person presenting himself at the American
consulate as an American seaman be received as such, and
conveyed to the United States at their expense, a charge
heretofore made, though utterly without foundation, against
the American government, of inviting British seamen into
the service of the United States might recur with an appear-
ance of plausibility. The undersigned deems it, therefore,
proper to express the expectation that when he is required
by the British government to provide for the reconveyance
to their country of American seamen, the individuals will
be pointed out to him in such a manner as to satisfy him of
their right to that provision. He is, however, fully persuaded
that the measures he has herein suggested will render every
other unnecessary, and entirely remove the ground of a
complaint upon which the representation of the Lord Mayor
was founded. The Undersigned begs Lord Castlereagh to
accept, etc.
TO JAMES MADISON
Ealing near London, 24 December, 18 15.
Sir:
The pamphlet which I do myself the honor of transmitting
to you with this letter was some time since sent me by its
author with the request that I would forward it to you.
This gentleman1 who resides at Berlin and is librarian to the
King of Prussia is by birth a Spaniard. His father was form-
erly in high diplomatic office as Minister of Spain succes-
sively at several European courts. Nearly two years since
he wrote me a letter, relating to me some of the particulars
of his life, and expressing an earnest wish to remove to the
1 Alvar-Augustin de Liagno.
452 THE WRITINGS OF [1815
United States and settle there for the remainder of his days.
His opinions and the course of life which he had adopted
were so much at variance with the predominating prejudices
and establishments of his country, that he had voluntarily
quitted it, and in seeking a condition congenial to his own
temper and disposition had somehow or other alighted upon
that in which he was then and yet is situated. It was not,
however, adapted to give him contentment, and he was
anxious to go to America; but it was necessary that he should
find some situation which would furnish him the means of
subsistence, and although he was a man of letters and of
science, I knew of none which would secure to him the com-
fortable station which he expected to find, particularly as
among the multitude of his acquirements he was not master
of our language. In my answer to his letter I therefore dis-
suaded him from his project of going to the United States,
and I have not heard from him directly upon that subject
again. From the manuscript additions to the copy of the
pamphlet which he has addressed to you, and from some in-
timations in his letter to me which accompanied it, I think
it probable that he has not altogether abandoned the design;
but in the meantime he has employed his leisure in attacking
the writings of an author who has recently acquired great
celebrity in France. I have not felt obliged to decline com-
plying with his request of forwarding to you the inclosed copy
of his work, but I thought it proper at the same time to
mention to you these particulars relating to him that you
may be apprised of his situation and purposes in case you
should think proper to take any notice of his offering.
I have the honor etc.
1815] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 453
TO ABIGAIL ADAMS
Boston House, 27 December, 181 5.
My Dear Mother:
• ••••••
This new political connection will, however, probably not
be of long continuance. My Father's opinion that I can do
here no good for my country so far coincides with my own,
that combining with the terms upon which it has pleased
my country to impose upon me the duty of representing her
here, it has induced me repeatedly to request to be relieved
from the burden which upon those terms will from day to
day become more insupportable. If it be possible for me to
do any good, the same service may be equally performed by
many others to whom it would be more agreeable, and whose
circumstances in life may enable them to perform it without
injustice to themselves and their families.
As Congress are now in session, I suppose your enigma
about the commercial treaty or convention has before this
time found a solution. The British government, who were
very unwilling to make any commercial treaty at all, ap-
peared to be actuated by the principle when they did con-
sent to treat, of making as little of a treaty as possible.
From the anxious expectation which it appears to have ex-
cited in the United States there cannot fail to result much
disappointment, and not a little derision when it comes to
be known. Little however as it is, it has excited some dis-
content among the commercial monopolists of this country,
and has been attacked with as much bitterness, and probably
far more ability, for what it contains, as I have no doubt it
will be in America for what it omits.
Our naval campaign in the Mediterranean has been per-
454
THE WRITINGS OF [1815
haps as splendid as anything that has occurred in our annals
since our existence as a nation. It has excited little atten-
tion in Europe, because a more extensive scene and more
powerful interests have absorbed all the attention of the
European nations at the same time; but it has manifested
an American influence upon the Barbary powers which, if
not much noticed by the people of the Christian nations,
will sink deep enough into the memory of the cabinets by
which they are governed. While we remain entirely dis-
connected with the political arrangements of Europe, our
affairs and our achievements will be but little noticed by
them, and when noticed, we must expect to discover the
impression which it produces upon them, not by their ap-
probation, but by their jealousy. Europe, which has al-
ready felt us far more than she or we ourselves are aware, is
destined yet to feel us perhaps more than she or we expect.
It is for us to remember that during the last year of our late
war with Great Britain, there was a virtual combination
of all Europe with her against us, and although it is to be
hoped that the ascendancy which Great Britain has acquired
is already waning, and will rapidly decline, we must still
be always prepared for self-defence against the aggressions
which her interests or her passions may point or excite to
effect if possible our ruin. Her language at the present time
is pacific, but the situation of her people is so far from being
easy or contented, that it is a prevailing sentiment here that
a foreign war is indispensably necessary to save the nation
from internal convulsions. Their animosities against France
have been almost satiated by the condition to which they
have reduced her, but their feelings against America are
keener, more jealous, more envious, more angry than ever.
The government is making the experiment of peace; but
peace already ruins the agricultural interest of the country,
i8iS] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 455
and as they must soon find the absolute necessity of making
new loans and issuing new floods of Bank paper, it is to be
feared that their only expedient for reconciling the people
to these measures will be to involve them in a war which
will furnish the pretext for resorting to them. I hope, how-
ever, that it will at least not arise until I shall have been
released from the station of sentinel at this post. . . .
TO RUFUS KING
Ealing near London, 29 December, 181 5.
My Dear Sir:
Very shortly after my arrival in this country I had the
pleasure of meeting in London your son, and Mr. Robert Ray
delivered to me the letter of introduction which you had
given him for me. Mr. Ray's residence in London was only
for a few days, and your son has been there so little that I
have not had the happiness of meeting either of them so
often as I should have desired. Mr. J. A. Smith who ar-
rived here a few days since informs me that he had the pleas-
ure of seeing you just before his departure from New York,
and that you were kind enough to express to him the re-
membrance of that friendly correspondence which formerly
subsisted between us so much to my benefit and satisfac-
tion and which I hope accident alone has interrupted. Of
your kindness and good offices to me I trust you will believe
that I shall never lose the recollection, and although of late
years considerable shades of difference between our political
opinions upon objects of high concernment to our country
have arisen, yet I flatter myself that they have in no respect
impaired in the mind of either of us the confidence in the
other's integrity or the sentiments of personal friendship.
456 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
I now take the liberty of introducing to your acquaintance
the bearer of this letter, Mr. Frederic Pursh. He is a natural-
ized citizen of the United States, author of a flora of North
America considered as a very valuable botanical work and
is now upon his return to that country with the purpose of
pursuing his researches of the same nature in a manner
which may be highly useful to the public and in which your
aid and encouragement may be essentially serviceable to
him. I beg leave to recommend him to them and to assure
you at the same time of the high respect with which I am
etc.
TO GEORGE JOY
Boston House, i January, 1816.
Sir:
Many returns of a happy New Year to you and many
thanks for the perusal of the inclosed letters, which I hope
you will receive in time for tomorrow's post. I have re-
ceived last week a letter from Mr. Bourne on the subject of
consular compensation. I had received many from him on
the same subject before. I have repeatedly stated his case
at his request to the government, and have as often recom-
mended a revision of our consular establishment as to con-
vince myself that it is labor in vain. There is weight in the
observation of the captain quoted by our friend at the Hague,
but what is more important to the point is that both Houses
of Congress are precisely of the captain's opinion. Our
Yankee countrymen will argue that a man is not a dollar's
worth the better for the governor of a state because he can
draw down thunder from Heaven. They would be apt
shrewdly to suspect him not so good for it. They have no
relish for a government of thunderbolts. Jonathan chooses
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 457
to live snug and at small cost. He chooses to have no useless
servants at great expense, and if now and then any of his
men tells him it is impossible to live upon the wages he gives
and asks for his discharge, Jonathan gives it, and the next
day he finds an hundred solicitors storming his doors to get
the place at the same wages that he gave before, aye, and
the thunderbolt man as eager as any of the rest. When you
talk to Jonathan about the necessity of maintaining his
dignity, he laughs, casts a sly look across the waters at
Brother John and says, there's dignity enough for both of
us. Who is the best served? For Jonathan after all is some-
times vain of his servants and esteems them much, though
he pays them little. To be sure all his servants, when they
have got their places, tell him that he is a stingy master.
Alas! I tell him so myself! but I think he will not believe
me, but prove to me that he can be served quite as well by
another. To say the truth I do not know that Jonathan
ever lost any important service, though he has lost many
good servants, by the smallness of his wages. Money is not
the only inducement or reward to important service. Men
of spirit and of honor serve their country for fame, for glory,
for patriotism; and believe me, my dear sir, whatever Jon-
athan may pay for his servants he is and will be well served.
I do not ask you to burn this, though I have more reason
than your other correspondent. Adieu!
458 THE WRITINGS OF [i8«S
TO GEORGE JOY
Boston House, 5 January, 1816.
Dear Sir:
More thanks for the perusal of President Kirkland's
letter. No man has a more clear and lucid style than he
generally writes with. But I did not understand the first
part of his letter until I was told it meant, that federalists
when in Europe were good Americans and in America good
federalists — ubicunque good as Bonaparte was ubicunque
jelix. I am like you waiting for the reasons why the proc-
lamation of the President for equalizing duties was post-
poned, and to see whether the convention will or will not
be ratified. The Chronicle indignantly arraigns the Ministry
for a superabundance of generosity to America. President K.
thinks the anti-Britannic feeling is kept up for mere election-
eering purposes. The Chronicle and the President are both
mistaken. The message is brought to me while I am wait-
ing. There is nothing in it which looks like non-ratification
of the Convention, but the Senate are to decide upon it. . . .
TO JOHN ADAMS
Boston House, Ealing, 5 January, 1816.
My Dear Sir:
• ••••*•
I plainly perceive that you are not to be converted, even
by the eloquence of Massillon, to the Athanasian creed.
But when you recommend to me Carlostad, and Scheff-
macher, and Priestley, and Waterland, and Clerk, and
Beausobre — Mercy! mercy! what can a blind man do to be
saved by unitarianism, if he must read all this to understand
i8i6l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 459
his Bible? I went last Christmas day to Ealing Church,
and heard the Reverend Colston Carr, the vicar, declare and
pronounce, among other things, that whosoever doth not
keep the catholic faith whole and undefiled, without doubt
he shall perish everlastingly. And the catholic faith is this:
That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity,
etc. — in short the creed of Saint Athanasius; which, as you
know, the eighth article of the English Church says, may be
proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture. Now
I have had many doubts about the Athanasian Creed; but
if I read much more controversy about it, I shall finish by
faithfully believing it. Mr. Channing says he does not be-
lieve, because he cannot comprehend it. Does he compre-
hend how the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, infinite,
eternal spirit, can be the father of a mortal man, conceived
and born of a Virgin? Does he comprehend his own mean-
ing when he speaks of God as the Father, and Christ as the
Son? Does he comprehend the possibility according to
human reason, of one page in the Bible from the first verse
in Genesis to the last verse of the Apocalypse? If he does, I
give him joy of his discovery, and wish he would impart it
to his fellow Christians. If the Bible is a moral tale, there is
no believing in the Trinity. But if it is the rule of faith —
I hope you will not think me in danger of perishing ever-
lastingly, for believing too much, and when you know all,
with your aversion to thinking of the Jesuits, you may think
I have made a lucky escape, if I do not believe in transub-
stantiation. During almost the whole period of my late
residence in Russia, I had the pleasure of a social and very
friendly acquaintance with the Right Reverend Father in
God, Thaddeus Brozowsky, then and now Father General
of the Jesuits, one of the most respectable, amiable, and
venerable men that I have ever known. As I was the medium
460 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
of communication between him and his correspondents in
the United States, he used frequently to call upon me, and
I had often occasion to return his visits. We used to con-
verse upon all sorts of topics, and among the rest upon reli-
gion. He occasionally manifested a compassionate wish for
my conversion to the true Catholic faith, and one day under-
took to give me a demonstration of the real presence in the
Eucharist. He said it was ingeniously proved in a copper-
plate print which he had seen, representing Jesus Christ
sitting between Luther and Calvin, each cf them bearing
the wafer of the communion. Each of them had also a label
issuing from his lips, and, pointing with the finger to the
bread, Christ was saying, "This is my body," while Luther
said, "This represents my body," and Calvin, "This signifies
my body." At the bottom of the whole was the question,
"Which of them speaks the truth?" It was not the worthy
Father's fault if I did not consider this demonstration as
conclusive as he did. Another day — and it will give you an
idea of the simplicity of this good man's heart — we were dis-
cussing together the celibacy of the clergy, which he deemed
indispensable, that they might be altogether devoted to the
service of their Lord and master, and not liable to the avoca-
tions of this world's concerns. I did not think it would be
generous to remind him of the manner in which the experi-
ence of the world had shown that the vows of religious chas-
tity usually resulted, but rather resorted to authority with
regard to the principle. I observed to him that not only all
the Protestant communities, but the Greek Church also,
allowed the clergy to marry. Upon which, after a moment
of reflection, he said, "Oui, c'est vrai. II n'y a que l'eglise
romainc qui soit encore vierge!" Indeed, you must give
me some credit for firmness of character, for withstanding
the persuasion of such a patriarch as this.
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 461
We have, in the newspapers of last evening and this morn-
ing, the President's message at the opening of the session of
Congress. It gives upon the whole a pleasing view of the
state of our public affairs, but not quite so fair an aspect of
the finances as were to be wished. Peace, however, will be
the most healing of all medicines to them, and the complex-
ion of the message is entirely pacific. The present intentions
of the British government, I believe, are of a corresponding
spirit; but it is an opinion widely circulated here, that peace
itself, instead of healing their finances, will prove their in-
evitable destruction. That nothing but a new war can save
them, and that the most convenient and least burdensome
war would be with America. The distrust in the continu-
ance of the peace is so universal, and I am beset by so many
and so frequent anxious inquiries from some quarters, and
mysterious hints from others, that although the official pro-
fessions have been invariably pacific and friendly, I am some-
times not without uneasiness, lest a want of sufficient vigi-
lance should leave undiscovered a lurking danger, which
might break upon us unawares. A war, however, even with
America, could not be undertaken without preparations
and armaments of which there is not the slightest indication.
A war must be preceded by complaints well or ill founded,
of which there are indeed some on our part sufficient, perhaps,
ultimately to result in hostilities, but which neither require
nor would justify them at this time. On their part I have
heard of none, nor have I reason to suppose that Mr. Bagot,
who is about embarking for America as the British minister,
goes with any particular load of grievances. He has been
anxiously waiting, as I am gravely assured, upwards of three
months for his passage, because men could not be obtained
by enlistment to navigate the frigate in which he is to go.
The effect of the peace here which proves so distressing
462 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
is the depreciation in the value of grain, and of the other
productions of the soil.1 The natural and inevitable con-
sequence of which has been the inability of the farmers to
pay their rents; the fall in the value of all landed estates, a
partial defalcation of the revenue, and an aggravated sore-
ness under the burdens of tythes and taxation. There is
doubtless much exaggeration in some of the accounts that
are published of this state of things; but on all sides it is ad-
mitted that the suffering of the agricultural interest is very
severe. That peace should be followed by plenty, is of very
old experience. But that plenty should operate as a great
national calamity, requires a public debt of a thousand mil-
lions sterling, and a banking system to be accounted for.
At the meeting of Parliament, which is to be on the first of
February, the extent of the evil, and the remedies to be pro-
vided for it, will be more fully ascertained. Some put their
trust in war, and some in famine, to relieve the people from
their burdens. Others look for salvation by the flooding of
paper from the Bank. That institution has called in so much
of its paper that there is now scarcely any advance upon
silver and gold. The project of resuming specie payments
is to be attempted, and whether it can be accomplished
with forty millions of annual interest upon the public debt
to be paid, is the problem now about to receive the solution
of experience. Whatever the result may be, the lesson may
be profitable to us. If a nation can prosper in peace or war
with a debt of a thousand millions sterling, it will be useful
to us to make ourselves perfect masters of the mode in which
such a marvellous paradox is converted into practical truth.
If the paper castle be really built upon a rock impregnable
and immovable, let us learn the art of building it. If the
same course of conduct which leads to inevitable and irre-
1 This subject is treated in Tooke, History of Prices, II. 2.
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 463
coverable private ruin is the sure and only path that will
conduct a nation to the pinnacle of human greatness and
power, let us trace it to its utmost bounds. But if a day of
reckoning for extravagance and profusion must come for
nations as well as individuals, if the wisdom of ages will
ultimately vindicate its own maxims, and if prudence is not
to yield forever her place as one of the cardinal virtues to
prodigality, then will the catastrophe of paper credit, which
cannot now longer be delayed in this country, place before
us the whole system of artificial circulation in all its good
and all its evil, and while disclosing all the uses of this
tremendous machine as an engine of power, teach us at
the same time the caution necessary to guard ourselves from
the irreparable ruin of its explosion. . . .
TO LORD CASTLEREAGH
The undersigned Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary from the United States of America, in reply
to the note which he has had the honor of receiving from
Lord Castlereagh of the 5th instant, observes that besides
the reciprocal liberty of commerce between the territories of
the United States and all the British territories in Europe,
stipulated in the first article of the commercial convention
concluded in July last, there is in the second article of the
same convention a provision that "no higher or other duties
or charges shall be imposed in any of the ports of the United
States on British vessels than those payable in the same
ports by vessels of the United States, nor in the ports of any
of His Britannic Majesty's territories in Europe on the
vessels of the United States than shall be payable in the
same ports on British vessels.
464
THE WRITINGS OF [1816
It appears to the undersigned that a restriction which
permits vessels of the United States to take from the ports
of Ireland only one passenger for every five tons register of
the vessel, while it allows British vessels to take one pas-
senger for every two tons, does not comply with the engage-
ment for a reciprocal liberty of commerce. It likewise ap-
pears to him to subject in its operation the vessels of the
United States to higher charges in the ports of Ireland than
those imposed in the same ports on British vessels. The
undersigned is informed that in the commercial intercourse
between the United States and Ireland the greatest propor-
tion of the freight of vessels going to America consists of
passengers, and that a limitation of the number of them to
one person for every five tons is nearly equivalent to an ex-
clusion of the vessels subject to it, while other vessels are
not liable to the same limitation. So that while one of the
principal objects of the contracting parties to the commercial
convention was to place the vessels of the two nations upon
a footing of equal burdens and advantages in the ports of
both, this regulation will confine the commerce between
Ireland and the United States exclusively to British vessels,
unless the restriction be removed, or unless countervailing
regulations should be resorted to by the American govern-
ment. If it be said that the regulation in question does not
directly violate the letter of the stipulation to which the
undersigned refers, he requests His Lordship to suppose the
case that by a regulation of the government of the United
States British vessels in the ports of the United States should
be permitted to take a lading of only two-fifths of their
tonnage of the articles of export from that country, while
American vessels should possess exclusively the privilege of
shipping cargoes to the full extent of their tonnage. Would
not the inevitable effect of such a measure be to subject
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 465
British vessels to heavier charges than those imposed upon
American vessels? Would it not be more effectual to deprive
British vessels of the equality contemplated by the commer-
cial convention than any discrimination of tonnage duties
ever established between the vessels of the two countries?
Assuredly such a regulation, applied in the ports of this
island to the vessels of the United States with respect to
the export of manufactured articles which constitute their
cargoes, would be tantamount to a prohibition of the Amer-
ican merchant flag in the ports of Great Britain. In the
trade with America from Ireland passengers form the prin-
cipal article of export, and to allow them to be exported only
in British vessels is in its result the same as if a prohibitory
tonnage duty was laid upon American vessels in the Irish
ports. The undersigned indulges the hope that in the execu-
tion of that article of the convention, the object of which
was to abolish on both sides the discriminating burdens,
and to impart on both sides the benefit of equal privileges
to the shipping of each nation in ports of the other, both
governments will give it a construction corresponding with
the liberal and conciliatory spirit in which it was formed — a
construction which will give full effect to the mutual in-
tentions of the high contracting parties. It was on this prin-
ciple that he had the honor of addressing Lord Castlereagh
his former note upon the subject, and it is with this senti-
ment that he now requests His Lordship to accept the re-
newed assurance of his high consideration.
13 Craven street,1 8th January, 18 16.
1 The office of the legation had been removed from No. 25 Charles Street, West-
minster, to No. 13 Craven Street, in the Strand, on December 30, 1815. Craven
Street is a narrow street next west of Charing Cross railway station, and runs from
No. 10 Strand to the Thames Embankment. Franklin lodged in No. 7 (now No. 36)
Craven Street, during his residence in London, 1757-1775.
466 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
TO ABIGAIL ADAMS
Ealing, 9 January, 1816.
My Dear Mother:
Mr. Bagot, or to speak in the style and after the fashion
of this country, the Right Honorable Charles Bagot, was
immediately after my arrival in this country appointed by
the Prince Regent Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary to the United States of America. He is a
young man, I conjecture about thirty, brother of Lord Bagot,
and his lady is a daughter of Mr. Wellesley Pole, the Master
of the Mint, and a niece of the Duke of Wellington and the
Marquis of Wellesley. ... As I have received personal
civilities from Mr. Bagot, and from his lady's family, I am
naturally the more disposed to wish that their residence in
America may be made agreeable to them. They have six
children, four of whom they leave in England, taking only
two with them.
By the arrival of the Milo at Liverpool I have received
your kind letter of 2 December, inclosing the copy of my
father's letter to Dr. Price, of which Mr. Morgan has made
such improper use.1 I am waiting for the letters by Mr. and
Mrs. Tarbell. You may well incline to ask Mr. Morgan who
was the dupe? Dr. Price was duped by the goodness and
simplicity of his heart, by the enthusiasm of his love for
liberty, and by his ignorance of the world in which he lived.
His ardent zeal in favor of the French Revolution has shed
a sort of ridicule upon his reputation, and his opinions upon
that and some other subjects have been so completely falsi-
fied by events which have happened since his death, that
his very name is sinking into oblivion. Indeed the Dissent-
ers in this country have fallen much into contempt since his
1 Works of John Adams, X. 175.
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 467
time. Their political and religious doctrines have a tide
equally strong running against them; and their conduct,
which at one time swelled into seditious insolence, and at
another sunk into fawning servility, has thrown them into
such discredit, that the church may now, if they please,
persecute them with impunity. They attempted here a few
weeks since to make a stir about the real persecution under
which the Protestants are suffering in the south of France.
They held meetings, and passed high sounding resolutions,
and opened subscriptions, and sent deputations to his
Majesty's ministers, and buzzed about their importance,
as busily and intrusively as so many horse-flies in dog-days.
His Majesty's ministers put off their deputation with general,
insignificant civilities, which they met again, and resolved
to give highly satisfactory assurances of support and inter-
ference in behalf of French Protestants. His Majesty's
ministers then set their daily newspapers to circulate the
report that Protestants in France were all Jacobins, and
that if they were massacred, and had their churches burnt,
their houses pulled down over their heads, it was not for
their religion but for their politics. From that moment
Master Bull has had neither compassion nor compunction
for the French Protestants. The Dissenters by a rare notion
of stupidity and Jesuitism (for there are Jesuits of all de-
nominations) have denied the fact, and vainly attempted
to suppress the evidence that proved it; of stupidity for not
perceiving that this must ultimately be proved against them,
and of Jesuitism for contesting the fact against their better
knowledge, because they could produce Protestant invec-
tives against Bonaparte after his fall, and Protestant adula-
tion to Louis 18 after his restoration. The French Protes-
tants, like the English Dissenters, have been throughout
the course of the French Revolution generally time-servers.
468 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
Like the mongrel brood of Babylonians and Samaritans
after the Assyrian captivity, their political worship has been
after "the manner of the God of the land." They have
feared the Lord and served their graven images. They
hated Bonaparte, no doubt, in proportion as they found
themselves galled by his yoke, and they had no gratitude
for the protection and security which his authority gave
them for the free exercise of their religion and the quiet
enjoyment of their property. But the Protestants had un-
questionably been from the first ardent supporters and ex-
aggerated friends of the revolution. It was indeed natural
enough that they should be, for the revolution had redeemed
them from a worse than Egyptian thraldom. My father
well remembers from personal knowledge what was the con-
dition of the Protestants in France before the revolution,
and in what sort of sentiments concerning them and their
religion all the Bourbons were educated. The revolution
gave them equal religious and political rights with those of
the rest of their countrymen. They had been twenty years
freely and eagerly purchasing the national property, and
among the rest, it appears, had purchased two of the old
convents at Nismes, and used them for churches. Yet they
joined in the hue and cry against Napoleon after he was
down. Yet they fawned upon the Bourbons, when from the
shoulders of the enemies of France they were turned off
upon them, and licked the dust at the feet of Louis le Desire.
As if tythes, and monks, and barefoot processions, and leg-
ends, and relics, and religious bigotry, had not been the
darling and only consolations of Louis and his Bourbons in
their exile, and would not inevitably bring back religious
intolerance with them. Now, this is the foundation upon
which the Dissenters here have relied, to deny that the
present persecution of the French Protestants has been for
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 469
politics. But now comes a letter from the Duke of Welling-
ton, formally announcing that it was for politics, and hence-
forth, instead of whining, and resolving, and subscribing
for the French Protestants, the churchmen here, if the coal
of the Angouleme fires were extinguished, would lend him
a fagot to kindle them again. The Duke of Wellington says,
too, that he is convinced the French government have done
all in their power to protect the Protestants. This is not so
certain. But whether they have or not, is held to be per-
fectly immaterial. The French Protestants were Jacobins
or Bonapartists — nothing more just and proper than that
they should be hunted down as wild beasts. At the same
time, the ministerial prints are teeming with reproaches
upon two of the king's sons for having lately attended at a
charity sermon preached in a Methodist chapel, and giving
broad hints that the church must be strengthened against
the Dissenters.
Since I began this letter yours of 10 March, 181 5, has
been put into my hands, together with one of 1 1 March from
my father. Letters from him and you can never come out of
season, but if Mr. Copeland, who was the bearer of these,
had delivered them to me when I saw him last April in Paris,
they would have been still more welcome and afforded me
at least fresher intelligence. Instead of that they were left
in a drawer at the New England Coffee House, where they
have just now been discovered and sent to me by the master
of that house. I had never known of the origin of the cor-
respondence between Mr. Lloyd and my father, though I
have seen in this country the effusion, "half froth and half
venom," spit abroad against my father by the reptile Ran-
dolph in his letter to Lloyd.1 The letter from Mr. Lloyd to
1 John Randolph had, in 1814, written an appeal to Lloyd against the Hartford
Convention. It is printed in Niles, Register, VII. 258.
47o THE WRITINGS OF [1816
my father upon the fisheries I had long since received and
have derived much information from its contents.
I learnt with much concern the decease of that amiable
and excellent woman, Mrs. Waterhouse — a heavy and in-
comparable loss to the doctor and her daughters. I am very
sorry also to hear of the illness and infirm state of health of
Mr. Boylston. His brother, Sir Benjamin Hallowell,1 has
a house at Ealing, within a mile of us. His family resided
there since we have been here, and we dined with him and
his lady at Mr. William Vaughan's 2 in September. Mr.
Vaughan resides with his sisters at East Hill, Wandsworth,
about six miles from us. Admiral Hallowell has the com-
mand at Cork on the navy peace establishment, and is now
there with his lady. Their sister, Mrs. Elmsley, now resides
at their house in Ealing, and I propose shortly to call and
see her. Our boys are in the midst of their Christmas
vacation. . . .
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 26. (James Monroe]
London, 9 January, 1816.
Sir:
With my last dispatch I had the honor of inclosing a copy
of a note which I had addressed to Lord Castlereagh, con-
cerning a discrimination between vessels of the United
States and British vessels in the number of passengers which
1 Sir Benjamin Hallowell Carew (1760- 1834), son of Benjamin Hallowell, a royal
Commissioner of the American Board of Customs before the War for Independence.
He took the name Carew in 1828.
2 William Vaughan (1752-1850), son of Samuel and Sarah (Hallowell) Vaughan.
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 471
they are permitted to take in the ports of Ireland for con-
veyance to America. I now inclose copies of his Lordship's
answer and of my reply.
I have not yet addressed to him an official note upon the
subject of the Baltimore, taken within the Spanish jurisdic-
tion at St. Andrew, because the only evidence of the fact
contained in the papers is the protest of the master and mate
of the vessel. This protest states that there was at the time
of the capture a Spanish pilot on board. The owner's
nephew, Mr. Karthaws, has been here, and I have advised
him of the necessity of obtaining the testimony of the pilot,
or of other impartial witnesses at St. Andrew. For other-
wise, as soon as my note shall be presented to this govern-
ment, they will refer it to the captain of the ship which took
the Baltimore, and will consider his report as a satisfactory
answer to the claim. I have formerly mentioned to you
another and a similar case, that of the William and Mary,
captured last February at Cadiz, sent to Gibraltar, and
there condemned by the Vice Admiralty Court. The viola-
tion of the Spanish jurisdiction was in that case established
upon indisputable evidence. It was reported to the Spanish
government by the Governor of Cadiz himself, who made a
fruitless demand for the restitution of the captured vessel
by the Court at Gibraltar. Messrs. Dickason and Nevell,
the agents of the American owners here, had applied to
Count Fernan Nunez, the Spanish Ambassador, for author-
ity to enter an appeal of territory before the Admiralty
Court of Appeal, which he had declined to do without orders
from his court. On October last I wrote to the Ambassador,
stating the circumstances of the case and requesting him
to apply to his government for instructions to authorize
the appeal. He readily complied, and on the 14th of last
month wrote me that he had received orders to demand the
472 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
restitution of the vessel and cargo or their equivalent. That
he had sent in a note to the British government accordingly,
and would communicate to me their answer when he should
receive it. A few days since he sent me a copy of Lord
Castlereagh's answer to his note which was, that as the case
was pending in the Admiralty Court of Appeal, the Ambas-
sador was authorized to authorize the agents of the claim-
ants to enter the appeal of territory. The Count informed
me that he was ready to give the authority, it being under-
stood that all the expenses of the appeal were to be at the
charge of the claimants. I have given notice of this to the
agents, and I trust the cause will terminate in the restitu-
tion of the property. I mentioned the case in a letter to
Mr. Morris * at Madrid, requesting him if he should have
the opportunity, to urge an early answer to the Ambassador's
demand for instructions. Mr. Morris answers me on the
10th ultimo, that he had in May last made to Mr. Cevallos
two applications in this same case, to which he had received
in July only a verbal and offensive answer that it was under
advisement. It is yet remarkable that even when he wrote
to me, he was not informed of the orders which had been
transmitted to Count Fernan Nunez. . . .
TO LORD CASTLEREAGH
The undersigned Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary from the United States of America has re-
ceived and communicated to the government of the United
States the answer of Lord Bathurst to a letter which he had
the honor of addressing to His Lordship on the 25th of Sep-
tember last, representing the grounds upon which the Amer-
1 Anthony Morris.
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 473
ican government considers the people of the United States
entitled to all the rights and liberties in and connected with
the fisheries on the coasts of North America, which had been
enjoyed by them previously to the American Revolution,
and which by the third article of the treaty of peace of 1783
were recognized by Great Britain as rights and liberties be-
longing to them. The reply to Lord Bathurst's note has
been delayed by circumstances which it is unnecessary to
detail. It is for the government of the United States alone
to decide upon the proposal of a negotiation upon the sub-
ject. That they will at all times be ready to agree upon
arrangements which may obviate and prevent the recurrence
of those inconveniences stated to have resulted from the
exercise by the people of the United States of these rights
and liberties, is not to be doubted; but as Lord Bathurst
appears to have understood some of the observations in the
letters of the undersigned as importing inferences not in-
tended by him, and as some of his Lordship's remarks par-
ticularly require a reply, it is presumed that since Lord Cas-
tlereagh's return it will with propriety be addressed to him.
It had been stated in the letter to Lord Bathurst that the
treaty of peace of 1783 between Great Britain and the
United States was of a peculiar nature, and bore in that na-
ture a character of permanency not subject, like many of
the ordinary contracts between independent nations, to
abrogation by a subsequent war between the same parties.
His Lordship not only considers this as a position of a novel
nature, to which Great Britain cannot accede, but as claim-
ing for the diplomatic relations of the United States with
her, a different degree of permanency from that on which
her connections with all other states depends. He denies
the right of any one state to assign to a treaty made with her
such a peculiarity of character as to make it in duration an
474
THE WRITINGS OF [1816
exception to all other treaties, in order to found on a pecul-
iarity thus assumed an irrevocable title to all indulgences,
which (he alleges) has all the features of temporary con-
cessions, and he adds in unqualified terms that "Great
Britain knows of no exception to the rule that all treaties are
put an end to by a subsequent war between the parties."
The undersigned explicitly disavows every pretence of
claiming for the diplomatic relations between the United
States and Great Britain a degree of permanency different
from that of the same relation between either of the parties
and all other powers. He disclaims all pretence of assigning
to any treaty between the two nations any peculiarity not
founded in the nature of the treaty itself. But he submits
to the candor of his Majesty's government, whether the
treaty of 1783 was not from the very nature of its subject-
matter, and from the relations previously existing between
the parties to it, peculiar? Whether it was a treaty which
could have been made between Great Britain and any other
nation? And if not, whether the whole scope and objects of
the stipulations were not expressly intended to constitute a
new and permanent state of diplomatic relations between
the two countries, which would not and could not be an-
nulled by the mere fact of a subsequent war between them?
And he makes this appeal with the more confidence, be-
cause another part of Lord Bathurst's note admits treaties
often contain recognitions and acknowledgments in nature
of perpetual obligations, and because it impliedly admits that
the whole treaty of 1783 is of this character, with the ex-
ception of the article concerning the navigation of the Mis-
sissippi, and a small part of the article concerning the fish-
eries. The position that "Great Britain knows no exception
to the rule that all treaties are put an end to by a subsequent
war between the same parties," appears to the undersigned
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 475
not only novel, but unwarranted by any of the received
authorities upon the laws of nations, unsanctioned by the
practice and usages of sovereign states, suited in its tendency
to multiply the incitements to war, and to weaken the ties
to peace between independent nations, and not easily recon-
ciled with the admission that treaties, not unusually, con-
tain together with articles of a temporary character, liable
to revocation, recognitions and acknowledgments in nature
of perpetual obligation. A recognition or acknowledgment
of title stipulated by convention is as much a part of the
treaty as any other article, and if all treaties are abrogated
by war, the recognitions and acknowledgments contained
in them must necessarily be null and void, as much as any
other part of the treaty. If there be no exception to the rule
that war puts an end to all treaties between the parties to it,
what can be the purpose or meaning of those articles which
in almost all treaties of commerce are provided, expressly
for the contingency of war, and which during the peace are
without operation? On this point the undersigned would
refer Lord Castlereagh to the 10th article of the treaty of
1794 between the United States and Great Britain, where it
is thus stipulated: "neither the debts due from the individ-
uals of one nation to the individuals of the other, nor shares,
nor moneys, which they may have in the public funds or in
the public or private banks, shall ever, in any event of war or
national differences, be sequestered or confiscated." If war
puts an end to all treaties, what could the parties to this
engagement intend by making it formally an article of the
treaty? According to the principle laid down, excluding all
exception by Lord Bathurst's note, the moment a war broke
out between the two countries this stipulation became a dead
letter, and either state might have sequestered or confis-
cated those specified properties without any violation of
476 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
compact between the nations. The undersigned believes
there are many exceptions to the rule by which the treaties
between nations are mutually considered terminated by the
intervention of a war; that these exceptions extend to all
engagements contracted with the understanding that they
are to operate equally in war and peace, or exclusively during
war; to all engagements by which the parties superadd the
sanction of a formal compact to principles dictated by the
eternal laws of morality and humanity; and finally, to all
engagements which, according to the expressions of Lord
Bathurst's note, are in the nature 0$ perpetual obligation. To
the first and second of these classes may be referred the
tenth article of the treaty of 1794, and all treaties or articles
of treaties stipulating the abolition of the slave trade. The
treaty of peace of 1783 belongs to the third. The reasoning
of Lord Bathurst's note seems to confine this perpetuity of
obligation to recognitions and acknowledgments of title, to
consider its perpetual nature as resulting from the subject-
matter of the contract, and not from the engagements of the
contractor. While Great Britain leaves the United States
unmolested in the enjoyment of all the advantages, rights,
and liberties, stipulated in their behalf in the treaty of 1783,
it is immaterial to them whether she founds her conduct
upon the mere fact that the United States are in possession
of such rights, or whether she is governed by good faith and
respect for her own engagements. But if she contested any
one of them, it is to her engagements only that the United
States can appeal as the rule for settling the question of
right. If this appeal be rejected, it ceases to be a discussion
of right, and this observation applies as strongly to the
recognition of independence and to the boundary line in the
treaty of 1783, as to the fisheries. It is truly observed by
Lord Bathurst's note, that in that treaty the independence
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 477
of the United States was not granted but acknowledged.
He adds, that it might have been acknowledged without any
treaty, and that the acknowledgment, in whatever mode
made, would have been irrevocable. But the independence
of the United States was precisely the question upon which
a previous war between them and Great Britain had been
waged. Other nations might acknowledge their independ-
ence without a treaty, because they had no right, or claim
of right, to contest it; but this acknowledgment, to be binding
upon Great Britain, could have been only by treaty, because
it included the dissolution of one social compact between
the parties, as well as the formation of another. Peace could
exist between the two nations only by the mutual pledge
of faith to the new social relations established between them,
and hence it was that the stipulations of that treaty were in
the nature of perpetual obligation, and not liable to be for-
feited by a subsequent war, or by any declaration of the will
of either party without the assent of the other. In this view
it certainly was supposed by the undersigned that Great
Britain considered her obligation to hold and treat with the
United States as a sovereign and independent power, as de-
rived only from the preliminary articles of 1782, as converted
into the definitive treaty of 1783. The boundary line could
obviously rest upon no other foundation. The boundaries
were neither recognitions nor acknowledgments of title.
They could have been fixed and settled only by treaty, and
it is to the treaty alone that both parties have always referred
in all discussions concerning them. Lord Bathurst's note
denies that there is in any one of the articles of the treaty of
Ghent any express or implied reference to the treaty of 1783
as still in force. It says that by the stipulation for a mutual
restoration of territory, each party necessarily "reverted to
their boundaries as before the war, without reference to the
478 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
title by which their possessions were acquired, or to the
mode in which their boundaries had been previously fixed."
There are four several articles of the treaty of Ghent, in
every one of which the treaty of 1783 is not only named, but
its stipulations form the basis of the new engagements be-
tween the parties for carrying its provisions into execution.
These articles are the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th. The undersigned
refers particularly to the fourth article, where the boundaries
described are not adverted to without reference to the title
by which they were acquired, but where the stipulation of
the treaty of 1783 is expressly assigned as the basis of the
claims, both of the United States and of Great Britain, to
the islands mentioned in the article. The words with which
the article begins are, "Whereas it was stipulated by the
second article in the treaty of peace of one thousand seven
hundred and eighty-three, between his Britannic Majesty
and the United States of America, that the boundary of the
United States should comprehend all islands, etc." It pro-
ceeds to describe the boundaries as there stipulated, then
alleges the claim of the United States to certain islands as
founded upon one part of the stipulation, and the claim of
Great Britain as derived from another part of the stipula-
tion, and agrees upon the appointment of two commissioners
to decide to which of the two contracting parties the islands
belong, "in conformity with the true intent of the said treaty
of peace of 1783." The same expressions are repeated in
the fifth, sixth and seventh articles, and the undersigned is
unable to conceive by what construction of language one of
the parties to these articles can allege that at the time when
they were signed, the treaty of 1783 was, or could be con-
sidered, at an end,
When in the letter of the undersigned to Lord Bathurst
the treaty of 1783 was stated to be a compact of a peculiar
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
479
character, importing in its own nature a permanence not
liable to be annulled by the fact of a subsequent war between
the parties, the recognition of the sovereignty of the United
States and the boundary line were adduced as illustrations
to support the principle. The language of the above men-
tioned articles in the treaty of Ghent, and the claim brought
forward by Great Britain at the negotiation of it for the free
navigation of the Mississippi, were alleged as proofs that
Great Britain herself so considered it, except with regard to
a small part of the single article relative to the fisheries, and
the right of Great Britain was denied thus to select one par-
ticular stipulation in such a treaty and declare it to have
been abrogated by the war. The answer of Lord Bathurst
denies that Great Britain has made such a selection, and
affirms that the whole treaty of 1783 was annulled by the
late war. It admits, however, that the recognition of in-
dependence and the boundaries were in the nature of per-
petual obligation, and that with the single exception of the
liberties in and connected with the fisheries within British
jurisdiction on the coasts of North America, the United
States are entitled to all the benefits of all the stipulations
in their favor contained in the treaty of 1783, although the
stipulations themselves are supposed to be annulled. The
fishing liberties within British jurisdiction alone are con-
sidered as a temporary grant, liable not only to abrogation
by war, but as it would seem from the tenor of the argument
revocable at the pleasure of Great Britain, whenever she
might consider the revocation suitable to her interest. The
note affirms "that the liberty to fish within British limits,
or to use British territory, is essentially different from the
right to independence, in all that can reasonably be sup-
posed to regard its intended duration. That the grant of
this liberty has all the aspect of a policy, temporary and ex-
48o THE WRITINGS OF [1816
perimental, depending on the use that might be made of it
on the condition of the islands and places where it was to be
exercised, and the more general conveniences or inconven-
iences in a military, naval, or commercial point of view, re-
sulting from the access of an independent nation to such
islands and places." The undersigned is induced on this
occasion to repeat his Lordship's own words, because on a
careful and deliberate review of the article in question he is
unable to discover in it a single expression indicating even
in the most distant manner a policy temporary and experi-
mental, or having the remotest connection with military,
naval, or commercial conveniences or inconveniences to
Great Britain. He has not been inattentive to the variation
in the terms by which the enjoyment of the fisheries on the
main ocean, the common possession of both nations, and
the same enjoyment in a small portion of the special juris-
diction of Great Britain, are stipulated in the article and
recognized as belonging to the people of the United States.
He considers the term right as importing an advantage to be
enjoyed in a place of common jurisdiction, and the term
liberty as referring to the same advantage incidentally lead-
ing to the borders of a special jurisdiction. But evidently
neither of them imports any limitation of time. Both were
expressions no less familiar to the understanding than dear
to the hearts of both the nations parties to the treaty. The
undersigned is persuaded it will be readily admitted that,
wherever the English language is the mother tongue, the
term liberty, far from including in itself either limitation of
time or precariousness of tenure, is essentially as permanent
as that of right, and can with justice be understood only as
a modification of the same thing. And as no limitation of
time is implied in the term itself, so there is none expressed
in any part of the article to which it belongs. The restric-
i8i6] JOHiN QUINCY ADAMS 481
tion at the close of the article is itself a confirmation of the
permanency which the undersigned contends belongs to
every part of the article. The intention was that the people
of the United States should continue to enjoy all the benefits
of the fisheries which they had enjoyed theretofore. And with
the exception of drying and curing fish on the island of New-
foundland, all that American subjects should enjoy there-
after among them was the liberty of drying and curing fish on
the shores then uninhabited adjoining certain bays, harbors
and creeks. But when those shores should become settled,
and thereby become private and individual property, it was
obvious that the liberty of drying and curing fish upon them
must be conciliated with the proprietary rights of the owners
of the soil. The same restriction would apply to British
fishermen, and it was precisely because no grant of a new
right was intended, but merely the continuance of what had
been previously enjoyed that the restriction must have been
assented to on the part of the United States. But upon the
common and equitable rule of construction for treaties, the
expression of one restriction implies the exclusion of all
others not expressed, and thus the very limitation which
looks forward to the time when the unsettled deserts should
become inhabited to modify the enjoyment of the same
liberty, conformably to the change of circumstances, cor-
roborates the conclusion that the whole purport of the com-
pact was permanent and not temporary, not experimental,
but definitive. That the term right was used as applicable
to what the United States were to enjoy in virtue of a recog-
nized independence, and the word liberty, to what they were
to enjoy as concessions strictly dependent on the treat}' it-
self. The undersigned not only cannot admit, but considers
this as a construction altogether unfounded. If the United
States would have been entitled in virtue of a recognized in-
482 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
dependence to enjoy the fisheries to which the word rights is
applied, no article upon the subject would have been re-
quired in the treaty. Whatever their right might have been,
Great Britain would not have felt herself bound, without a
specific article to that effect, to acknowledge it as included
among the appendages to their independence. Had she not
acknowledged it, the United States must have been reduced
to the alternative of resigning it, or of maintaining it by
force, the result of which must have been war, the very
state from which the treaty was to redeem the parties.
That Great Britain would not have acknowledged these
rights as belonging to the United States in virtue of their
independence, is evident. For in the cession of Nova Scotia
by France to Great Britain in the twelfth article of the treaty
of Utrecht, it was expressly stipulated that as a consequence
of that cession, French subjects should be thenceforth "ex-
cluded from all kind of fishing in the said seas, bays, and
other places, on the coasts of Nova Scotia, that is to say, on
those which lie towards the east within 30 leagues, beginning
from the island commonly called Sable inclusively, and
thence stretching along towards the southwest. " The same
exclusion was repeated with some slight variation in the
treaty of peace of 1763, and in the 18th article of the same
treaty, Spain explicitly renounced all pretensions to the
right of fishing, "in the neighborhood of the island of New-
foundland." It was not, therefore, as a necessary result of
their independence that Great Britain recognized the right
of the people of the United States to fish on the Banks of
Newfoundland, in the gulf of St. Lawrence," and at all other
places in the sea where the inhabitants of "both countries
used at any time theretofore to fish," She recognized it by
a special stipulation as a right which they had theretofore
enjoyed as a part of the British nation, and which as an in-
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 483
dependent nation they were to continue to enjoy unmolested.
And it is well known that, so far from considering it as
recognized by virtue of her acknowledgment of independence,
her objections to admitting it at all formed one of the most
prominent difficulties in the negotiation of the peace of 1783.
It was not asserted by the undersigned, as Lord Bathurst's
note appears to suppose, that either the right or the liberty
of the people of the United States in their fisheries was in-
defeasible. It was maintained that after the recognition of
them by Great Britain in the treaty of 1783, neither the
right nor the liberty could be forfeited by the United States
but by their own consent; that no act or declaration of
Great Britain alone could divest the United States of them;
and that no exclusion of them from the enjoyment of either
could be valid, unless expressly stipulated by themselves,
as was done by France in the treaty of Utrecht, and by
France and Spain in the peace of 1763.
The undersigned is apprehensive, from the earnestness
with which Lord Bathurst's note argues to refute inferences
which he disclaims, from the principles asserted in his letters
to his Lordship, that he has not expressed her meaning in
terms sufficiently clear. He affirmed that previous to the
independence of the United States their people, as British
subjects, had enjoyed all the rights and liberties in the fish-
eries which form the subject of the present discussion, and
that when the separation of the two parts of the nation was
consummated by a mutual compact, the treaty of peace de-
fined the rights and liberties which by the stipulation of
both parties the United States in their new character were
to enjoy. By the acknowledgment of the independence of
the United States Great Britain bound herself to treat them
thenceforward as a nation possessed of all the prerogatives
and attributes of sovereign power. The people of the United
484 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
States were thenceforward neither bound in allegiance to
the sovereign of Great Britain, nor entitled to his protection
in the enjoyment of any of their rights as his subjects. Their
rights and their duties as members of a state were defined
and regulated by their own constitutions and forms of gov-
ernment. But there were certain rights and liberties which
had been enjoyed by both parts of the nation while subjects
of the same sovereign, which it was mutually agreed they
should continue to enjoy unmolested, and among them were
the rights and liberties in these fisheries. The fisheries on
the Banks of Newfoundland, as well in the open seas as in
the neighboring bays, gulfs, and along the coasts of Nova
Scotia and Labrador, were by the dispensations and the laws
of nature in substance only different parts of one fishery.
Those of the open sea were enjoyed, not as a common and
universal right of all nations, since the exclusion from them
of France and Spain, in whole or in part, had been expressly
stipulated by those nations, and no other nation had in fact
participated in them. It was, with some exceptions, an ex-
clusive possession of the British nation, and in the treaty of
separation it was agreed that the rights and liberties in them
should continue to be enjoyed by that part of the nation
which constituted the United States; that it should not be
a several, but as between Great Britain and the United
States, a common fishery. It was necessary for the enjoy-
ment of this fishery to exercise it in conformity to the habits
of the species of game of which it consisted. The places
frequented by the fish were those to which the fishermen were
obliged to resort, and these occasionally brought them to the
borders of the British territorial jurisdiction. It was also
necessary for the prosecution of a part of this fishery that
the fish, when caught, should be immediately cured and
dried, which could only be done on the rocks or shores ad-
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 485
joining the places where they were caught. The access to
those rocks and shores for these purposes was secured to the
people of the United States as incidental and necessary to
the enjoyment of the fishery. It was little more than an
access to naked rocks and desolate sands; but it was as
permanently secured as the right to the fishery itself. No
limitation was assigned of time. Provision was made for
the proprietary rights which might at a distant and future
period arise by the settlement of places then uninhabited,
but no other limitation was expressed or indicated by the
terms of the treaty, and no other can either from the letter
or spirit of the article be inferred. Far then from claiming
the general rights and privileges belonging to British sub-
jects within the British dominions, as resulting from the
treaty of peace of 1783, while at the same time asserting
their exemption from the duties of a British allegiance, the
article in question is itself a proof that the people of the
United States have renounced all such claims. Could they
have pretended generally to the privileges of British sub-
jects, such an article as that relating to the fisheries would
have been absurd. There was in the treaty of 1783 no ex-
press renunciation of their rights to the protection of a
British sovereign. This renunciation they had made by their
Declaration of Independence on the Fourth of July, 1776,
and it was implied in their acceptance of the counter re-
nunciation of sovereignty in the treaty of 1783. It was pre-
cisely because they might have lost their portion of this
joint national property, to the acquisition of which they had
contributed more than their share, unless a formal article of
the treaty should secure it to them, that the article was intro-
duced. By the British municipal laws, which were the laws
of both nations, the property of a fishery is not necessarily
in the proprietor of the soil where it is situated. The soil
486 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
may belong to one individual and the fishery to another.
The right to the soil may be exclusive, while the fishery may
be free or held in common. And thus, while in the partition
of the national possessions in North America stipulated by
the treaty of 1783, the jurisdiction over the shores washed
by the waters where this fishery was placed was reserved to
Great Britain, the fisheries themselves and the accommoda-
tions essential to their prosecution were by mutual compact
agreed to be continued in common.
In submitting these reflections to the consideration of His
Majesty's government the undersigned is duly sensible to
the amiable and conciliatory sentiments and dispositions
towards the United States manifested at the conclusion of
Lord Bathurst's note, which will be met by reciprocal and
corresponding sentiments and dispositions on the part of the
American government. It will be highly satisfactory to them
to be assured that the conduciveness of the object to the
national and individual prosperity of the inhabitants of the
United States operates with His Majesty's government as a
forcible motive to concession; undoubtedly the participa-
tion in the liberties to which their right is now maintained
is far more important to the interests of the people of the
United States, than the exclusive enjoyment can be to the
interests of Great Britain. The real, general and ultimate
interests of both the nations on this object, he is fully con-
vinced, are the same. The collisions of particular interests
which heretofore may have produced altercations between
the fishermen of the two nations, and the clandestine intro-
duction of prohibited goods by means of American fishing
vessels, may be obviated by arrangements duly concerted
between the two governments. That of the United States,
he is persuaded, will readily cooperate in any measure to
secure those ends, compatible with the enjoyment by the
i8i6l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 4^7
people of the United States of the liberties to which they
consider their title as unimpaired, inasmuch as it has never
been renounced by themselves. The undersigned prays
Lord Castlereagh to accept the renewed assurance of his
high consideration.
13 Craven street, 22 January, 18 16.
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 28. [James Monroe]
London, 22 January, 1816.
Sir:
• ••••••
It is to be hoped that the restoration of the ordinary dip-
lomatic relations between the United States and Spain will
be followed by a more conciliatory policy on the part of the
latter power than she has hitherto pursued. The internal
administration of Spain has given so much disgust to the
public feeling of Europe, and particularly of this country,
that the British Cabinet has in some sort partaken of it.
The national sentiment in England is likewise strong in
favor of the South Americans, and the prevailing opinion
is that their independence would be highly advantageous to
the interests of this country. A different and directly oppo-
site sentiment is entertained by the government. Their dis-
position is decided against the South Americans, but by a
political obliquity not without example, it is not so unequiv-
ocally in favor of the mother country. In the year 1776,
that wise and honest minister, Mr. Turgot, reported to the
King of France, that it was for the interest of his kingdom
that the insurrection in North America should be suppressed,
488 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
because the insurgents, when subdued, would still be such
turbulent and mutinous subjects that it would employ all
the force of Great Britain to keep them down, and her weak-
ness would make her a peaceable or at least a harmless
neighbor. In the month of February, 1778, France con-
cluded a treaty of commerce and an eventual treaty of
alliance with the United States, because they were de facto
independent. In the interval between those two periods
France was wavering and temporizing, with one hand seiz-
ing American privateers in her ports, and with the other
sending supplies of arms and ammunition to America. This
is precisely the present situation of Great Britain towards
Spain. The Cabinet have many other reasons besides that
of Mr. Turgot to secure the good neighborhood of impotence,
for wishing that the insurrection should be suppressed:
1. They have a deep rooted inveterate prejudice, fortified
by all the painful recollections of their own unfortunate con-
test against any revolution by which colonies were emanci-
pated and become independent states. 2. They have a
forcible moral impression, like that of their antipathy to the
slave trade, that it is wrong to assist or encourage colonies
in the attempt to throw off the yoke of their mother country.
3. They dread the influence of example, and always remem-
ber how many colonies they themselves still possess. 4. They
fear the consequences of South American independence upon
the whole system of European colonial policy. Their at-
tachment to this has been amply displayed in their anxious
and persevering efforts to draw the Braganza family back
to Lisbon, efforts well known to you, and which will probably
not be successful. 5. The mystic virtue of legitimacy. It is
impossible to write with proper gravity upon this subject,
but it has no small operation against the South American
independents. 6. And last, but not least, they look with no
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 489
propitious eye to the relation which will naturally arise
between independent governments on the two American
continents. They foresee less direct advantage to themselves
from a free commercial intercourse with South America,
than indirect injury by its tendency to promote the interests
of the United States. Perhaps they think a period may arise,
when one of the parties to this struggle will offer exclusive
advantages and privileges to them as the price of their as-
sistance. Hitherto they have professed to be neutral, and
at one time offered their mediation between the parties.
But they have assisted Ferdinand at least with money,
without which Morillo's x armament never could have sailed
from Cadiz, and they have suffered all sorts of supplies to
be sent to the insurgents from Jamaica. For as, notwith-
standing their inclinations, they are aware the South Amer-
icans may ultimately prove de facto independent, they hold
themselves ready to take advantage of the proper moment
to acknowledge them, if it should occur. This is one of the
points upon which the opposition are continually urging the
ministry, but hitherto without effect.
Should the United States be involved in a war with Spain,
whether by acknowledging the South Americans, or from
any other cause, we must take it for granted that all the
propensities of the British government will be against us.
Those of the nation will be so perhaps in equal degree, for
we must not disguise to ourselves that the national feeling
against the United States is more strong and more universal
than it ever has been. The state of peace, instead of being
attended by general prosperity, is found only to have ag-
gravated the burden of taxation which presses upon the coun-
try. There is considerable distress weighing chiefly upon
the landed interest, although the accounts which you will
1 Pablo Morillo.
490 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
see of it are excessively exaggerated. Enough however is
felt to prompt a strong wish for a new war in a great portion
of the community, and there is no nation with which a war
would be so popular as with America. But I have no hesita-
tion in stating my conviction that the present policy of the
ministry towards America is more pacific than that of the
nation. They are aware of the responsibility that such a
war would bring upon them, and are not at this time pre-
pared to encounter it. Of the cession of Florida I have not
lately heard, but I think there is no considerable armed force
prepared or preparing to be sent there, either from England
or Ireland. The navy, as I have informed you, is reduced
to a peace establishment unusually small, and even the
ships that are recommissioned cannot be manned without
bounties and impressment. There is a Colonel Stapleton,
Secretary of the Commissioners of the barrack office, going
out in the frigate with Mr. Bagot. He goes to Charleston,
South Carolina, as he says, on private business of his own.
This is the only symptom I have yet perceived of a large
military expedition to Florida. I have the honor to inclose
my reply to Lord Bathurst's note concerning the fisheries.
It has been delayed by an illness which for several weeks
disabled me from writing. I am with great respect, etc.
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 491
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 29. [James Monroe]
London, 31 January, 18 16.
Sir:
In my interview with Lord Castlereagh on the 25th in-
stant we had much conversation, as well upon the topics
which have formed the subjects of discussion with this
government during his absence, as upon those concerning
which I have recently been honored with your instructions.
As propositions for a formal negotiation had been made on
both sides, I thought it necessary to ascertain whether this
government would consider the full power under which I
had acted jointly with my late colleagues as yet sufficient
for concluding with me any further conventional arrange-
ments. At the time when we signed the commercial con-
vention of 3 July last, we had given notice that the objects
upon which we had been instructed to treat under that full
power were much more extensive than those upon which we
found it then practicable to come to an agreement; but as
the British plenipotentiaries informed us that their powers
would terminate in the conclusion of that convention, I told
them that I should make no further propositions unless by
virtue of subsequent instructions from my own government,
and in that case should address them in the ordinary chan-
nel of the Foreign Department. I now inquired of Lord
Castlereagh, whether this government were disposed now to
enter upon a further negotiation, and if they were, whether
they would expect me to produce a new full power. With
regard to the latter point Lord Castlereagh said that if I
should declare the government of the United States still
492 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
considered the joint power under which I had treated here-
tofore as in force to authorize me to treat separately, and
that the proposals which I should make were by the instruc-
tions of my government, he thought it would not be neces-
sary for me to produce a new power. As this answer, how-
ever, is not perfectly explicit, and as it requires of me a
declaration of what I must rather infer than positively know,
I would request as the safest course that a new full power
may be transmitted to me.
Lord Castlereagh inquired what were the subjects upon
which we should be desirous of treating. I mentioned as the
first and most important that which relates to seamen, ob-
serving the great anxiety which was felt in the United States
on this subject, the principal source of the late contest be-
tween the two countries, and that from which the greatest
danger of future dissensions was to be apprehended, unless
some provision should be made during the peace to prevent
the recurrence of the same evils whenever a new war may
take place. I noticed the new recommendation in the
President's message to Congress of the law for confining the
navigation of American vessels to American seamen, and
the solicitude manifested by the President that it may lead
to the total discontinuance of the practice of impressment
in our vessels. Lord Castlereagh expressed his satisfaction
at what he termed this change of policy on the part of the
United States, but far from appearing to think it a motive
for Great Britain to stipulate by treaty to forbear the prac-
tice of impressment, he intimated the opinion that this
measure of the United States, if fairly adopted and properly
carried into execution, would rather make any arrangement
between the two nations unnecessary. He said that its con-
sequence must be that there would be no British seamen on
board of American vessels to take, and, if so, the practice of
i8i6J JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 493
taking them would cease of course. He remarked that as the
inconvenience did not exist during the peace, it might be
doubted whether it was the most seasonable time for a dis-
cussion upon which there was such a different and opposite
view in point of principle entertained by the two govern-
ments. And although I argued that the time of peace, when
there was no immediate interest of either party at stake,
and when the feelings on both sides would be cool and com-
posed, might be peculiarly adapted to a mutual effort for
closing this fruitful source of dissensions, he was not in-
clined to that opinion. He intimated that there was still in
England a very strong and highly irritable feeling on this
subject; that the government could not incur the responsi-
bility of concession in relation to it; that it would be expe-
dient to wait until the new policy of the United States for
encouraging their own native seamen should fully have been
developed, and by its consequences have proved that Great
Britain would not need impressment to preserve herself
from the loss of her own seamen. He added, nevertheless,
that the British government would always be ready to hear
proposals on this subject, and to adopt arrangements which
might guard against abuses in the exercise of their rights.
As connected with this subject, I spoke to Lord Castle-
reagh of the notes which I have lately received from him re-
quiring me upon representations made by the Lord Mayor
of London and the Mayor of Liverpool to send to the United
States a number of distressed American seamen. As the
second requisition had been made to me without any reply
to the answer which I had given to the first, I concluded that
Lord Castlereagh had not seen my answer, and he confirmed
me in the correctness of that conjecture. He said my answer
must have been received while he was in the country, which
had been the cause of his not having seen it. I then men-
494
THE WRITINGS OF [1816
tioned to him the substance of its contents, the claim of far
the greater portion of the American seamen represented by
the Lord Mayor of London to be in so great distress to the
consideration of the British government, as having been re-
cently discharged from their service, into which most of
them had been impressed, and the propriety of indicating
to me by name those whom I should be required to take
measures for sending to America. I added that immediately
after receiving his note concerning the seamen at Liverpool
for whom I was called upon to provide, I had written to the
consul of the United States at that port requesting him to
ascertain who they were, and what claim they had to relief
from the American government. The Mayor of Liverpool
had stated their number to be twenty-six. The consul was
informed that they would all attend at his office; only nine-
teen presented themselves, and the consul had no means of
compelling the attendance of the others. Of the nineteen
only five had anv document or proof whatsoever to prove
them Americans. He must be aware that if the American
consuls were required to provide for and send to the United
States every man who should present himself to them as a
distressed seaman, and call himself an American, it would
open a door to many a British seaman to find his way to
America, and would tend to defeat the intentions of the
American government, however earnestly intent upon clos-
ing it against them by law. There were now great multitudes
of British seamen without employment. It was matter
of public notoriety that numbers of them had already gone
into the service of other countries; the newspapers asserted
that many had already found employment in American
vessels. I hoped, therefore, that this government would take
into consideration the propriety, 1. Of making provision
themselves for defraying the expense of maintaining and
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 495
of sending to the United States all the destitute American
seamen recently discharged from the British naval service.
2. Of enabling those of them who were entitled to small pen-
sions, the reward of long service or of mutilation by wounds,
to receive those annuities in America, without compelling
them at once to go there and to renounce their claim to this
little stipend for the mere amount of two or three years pur-
chase. 3. Of specifying by name the persons whom they
consider me or the American consul bound to provide for
and send as destitute American seamen to the United States.
Lord Castlereagh said that certainly these were very fair
subjects of representation, and that he would pay proper at-
tention to them; but he thought the inconveniences which
had unavoidably resulted from the reduction of the navy
were now nearly done away. Sixty or seventy thousand
men had been in the course of two or three months dismissed
from the service. It was impossible that such numbers of
men of the same occupation should be thus suddenly brought
upon the public without becoming for a time more or less
burdensome. London and Liverpool being the two prin-
cipal seaports of this country, an unusual proportion of the
discharged seamen had naturally resorted to them. The
representation from the Lord Mayor of London referred to
foreign seamen of various nations, and the note from Lord
Castlereagh which I had received on that occasion was a
circular. But as commerce was now in a very flourishing
situation, the seamen were gradually finding employment,
and as the incumbrance which they have occasioned was
merely temporary it has nearly passed over.
I shall give you in my next the sequel of this conference,
the result of which has confirmed all the opinions with re-
gard to the policy of this government which I gave you in
my last dispatch. There appears to me no prospect that
496 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
under the present ministry any constitutional arrangement
for renouncing the practice of impressment will be attainable,
and you will observe the new argument which Lord Castle-
reagh derives against such a stipulation from the measures
recommended by the President for excluding foreign seamen
from our service. There is no immediate prospect of any
maritime war, nor indeed any remote discernible prospect
of such a war with the United States neutral to it. As the
occurrence, however, is not impossible, and as the outrage
of that practice can never be tolerated by a nation of the
strength and resources to which the United States are rising,
it cannot too forcibly be urged upon their conviction, that
the only means of protecting their seafaring citizens in the
enjoyment of their right will consist in the energy with which
they shall be asserted.
With regard to the other topics embraced in the confer-
ence, I can only now state in a summary manner that I
think the proposal for mutually disarming on the lakes of
Canada which I made conformably to your instructions will
not be accepted; that no cession of Florida by Spain to
Great Britain has been made; that the British policy is
neutrality between Spain and the South Americans, and that
she considers the non acknowledgment of their independence
as essential to this system of neutrality; that the British
government adhere to their doctrine respecting the fisheries,
but are willing to negotiate, and do not wish to prevent our
people from fishing; that they will give no satisfaction for
the slaves carried away in violation of the treaty of Ghent,
and that they are not pleased at the emigrations from Ire-
land to the United States. I am etc.
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 497
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 30. [James Monroe]
London, 8 February, 1816.
Sir:
By way of introduction to the proposals which I was in-
structed to make to this government, in relation to the naval
armaments on the Canadian lakes, I observed to Lord Castle-
reagh at the conference with him on the 25th ultimo, that
next to the subject of seamen and impressment the most
dangerous source of disagreement between the two countries
arose in Canada. It had occasioned much mutual ill will
heretofore and might give rise to great and frequent ani-
mosities hereafter, unless guarded against by the vigilance,
firmness and decidedly pacific dispositions of the two govern-
ments. That there were continual tendencies to bad neigh-
borhood and even to acts of hostility in that quarter pro-
ceeding from three distinct causes: the Indians, the temper
of the British local authorities, and the British armaments
on the lakes. The post of Michillimackinac had been sur-
rendered not immediately after the ratification of the peace,
nor until late in the last summer, and some of the British
officers in Upper Canada had been so far from entering into
the spirit of their government, which had so anxiously pro-
vided for securing a peace for the Indians, that they took
no small pains to instigate the Indians to a continuance of
hostilities against the United States. The detention of the
post had also contributed to lead the Indians to expect
further aid from Great Britain in the prosecution of war, and
the consequences had been that it remained long very doubt-
ful, whether the Indians in that quarter would accept the
498 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
peace, the option of which had been secured to them. You
had represented these circumstances in a letter to Mr. Baker.
I had under your instructions repeated these representations
to Lord Liverpool and Lord Bathurst, both of whom had
given the strongest assurances that the intentions of this
government were sincerely pacific, and that its earnest wish
had been that the Indians should agree to the peace. That
no detention of Michillimackinac had been authorized by
its orders, and no instigation of the Indians against the
United States had been warranted by it. The fort was sur-
rendered in July, and as soon as the Indians found they
would not be supported by Great Britain in the war they
had manifested a readiness for peace, which I believe had
been concluded with all or most of the tribes in that direc-
tion. Other and more recent incidents had however oc-
curred of an unpleasant nature. A British officer had pur-
sued into the territory of the United States a deserter, had
taken him there, and carried him away. The officer him-
self had afterwards been arrested within the American
jurisdiction, tried and, owing to the absence of a principal
witness, convicted only of a riot, and moderately fined. An
Indian with a party, trespassing on the property of an Amer-
ican citizen at Gross Isle, had been killed in a boat while in
the act of levelling his musket at the American, and although
this had happened on the American territory the British
Commandant at Maiden had offered a reward of four hun-
dred dollars for the apprehension of the person who had
killed the Indian. An American vessel upon Lake Erie had
also been fired upon by a British armed vessel. But the
most important circumstance was the increase of the British
armaments upon the Canadian lakes since the peace. Such
armaments on one side rendered similar and counter arma-
ments on the other indispensable. Both governments would
i8i6j JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 499
thus be subjected to heavy, and in time of peace useless
expenses, and every additional armament would create new
and very dangerous incitements to mutual irritation and
acts of hostility. That the American government, anxious
above all for the preservation of peace, had authorized me
to propose a reduction of the armaments upon the lakes
upon both sides. The extent of this reduction the President
left at the pleasure of Great Britain, observing that the
greater it would be the more it would conform to his prefer-
ence, and that it would best of all suit the United States if
the armaments should be confined to what is necessary for
the protection of the revenue. Lord Castlereagh admitted
that the proposal was perfectly fair, and assured me that
so far as it manifested pacific and amicable dispositions it
would meet with the sincerest reciprocal dispositions on the
part of this government. He inquired if it was meant to
include in this proposition the destruction of the armed ves-
sels already existing there? I answered that it was not so
expressed in my instructions. I did not understand them
to include that, but if the principle should be acceptable to
Great Britain there would be ample time to consult the
American government with regard to the details. The im-
mediate agreement which I was directed to propose was
that there should be no new armament on either side. He
replied that as to keeping a number of armed vessels parad-
ing about upon the lakes in time of peace, it would be ridicu-
lous and absurd. There could be no motive for it, and every-
thing beyond what should be necessary to guard against
smuggling would be calculated only to produce mischief.
That he would submit the proposal to the consideration of
His Majesty's government, but we were aware that Great
Britain was on that point the weaker party. And therefore
it was that she had proposed at the negotiation of Ghent that
5oo THE WRITINGS OF [1816
the whole of the lakes including the shores should belong to
one party. In that case there would have been a large and
wide natural separation between the two territories, and
there would have been no necessity for armaments. He
expressed a strong predilection in favor of such broad natural
boundaries, and appeared to consider the necessity for
Great Britain to keep up considerable naval force on her
side of the lakes as resulting from the objections made on
the part of the United States to the expedient for preserving
the future peace between the two countries by Great Britain
upon that occasion. He said that just before the conclusion
of the peace Great Britain had been under the necessity of
making extraordinary exertions, and to build a number of
new vessels upon the lakes to enable her to maintain her
footing there. And when I remarked that this was not what
had drawn the animadversion of the American government
but the new armaments, vessels of war begun and built
since the peace, he replied that we had so much the advan-
tage over them there by our position that a mutual stipula-
tion against arming during the peace would be unequal and
disadvantageous in its operation to Great Britain. For as
the hands of both parties would by such an engagement be
tied until war should have commenced, the Americans by
their proximity would be able to prepare armaments for
attack much sooner than those of the British could be pre-
pared for defence. I urged that, as at all events the state of
the armaments during peace on one side must be the meas-
ure of those on the other, this advantage of proximity must
be nearly the same, whether they are great or small; that
the agreements to forbear arming in time of peace would
rather diminish than add to it; and that a war could not break
out on the part of the United States suddenly, or without
such a previous state of the relations between the two na-
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 501
tions as would give the British government warning to be
prepared for the event, to take such measures as might en-
able them to arm on the lakes when the war commenced,
quite as rapidly and effectually as the United States could do
on their side. But although Lord Castlereagh promised to
submit the proposal to the Cabinet, his own disinclination
to accede to it was so strongly marked that I cannot flatter
myself it will be accepted. The utmost that he may be in-
duced to consent to may be an arrangement to limit the
force which either party shall keep in actual service upon
the lakes. I next observed that at the other extremity of
the United States the Indians again appeared in the shape
of disturbers of the peace between our countries. I reca-
pitulated your remonstrances to Mr. Baker and mine by
your order to Lord Bathurst against the conduct of Colo-
nel Nicholls; that officer's pretended treaties of alliance,
offensive and defensive, and of commerce and navigation,
with certain runaway Indians whom he had seen fit to style
the Creek nation; and the very exceptionable manner in
which he had notified his transactions to the agent of the
United States with the Creeks, with an intimation that we
were to hear more about these treaties when they should be
ratified in England. I mentioned that Lord Bathurst had
in the most candid and explicit manner verbally disavowed
to me those proceedings of Colonel Nicholls; had told me that
the pretended treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive,
had been indeed transmitted by the Colonel for ratification,
but this government had refused to ratify it, and informed
Colonel Nicholls that they would agree to no such treaty;
that the Colonel had even brought over some of his Indians
here, who would be sent back with advice to make their
terms with the United States as they could. These verbal
assurances I had reported to my government and presumed
502
THE WRITINGS OF [1816
they had been received with much satisfaction. Whether
they had been repeated in a more formal manner and in any
written communication I had not been informed. I had
noticed the conduct of Colonel Nicholls in one of my notes to
Lord Bathurst, and to that part of the note had received no
answer. As the complaint had also been made through
Mr. Baker, a written answer might perhaps have been re-
turned through that channel. My motive for referring to
the subject now was that by the President's message to
Congress at the opening of the session I perceived that the
conduct of the Indians in that part of the United States still
threatened hostilities, and because there, as in the more
northern parts, the Indians would certainly be disposed to
tranquillity and peace with the United States, unless they
should have encouragement to rely upon the support of
Great Britain. Lord Castlereagh said with a smile that he
had a good many treaties to lay before Parliament, but none
such as those I described were among them. I observed
that this affair had given more concern to the government of
the United States, because they had received from various
quarters strong and confident intimations that there had
been a cession of Florida by Spain to Great Britain. "As to
that (said Lord Castlereagh with a little apparent emotion)
I can set you at ease at once. There is not and never has
been the slightest foundation for it whatever. It never has
been mentioned. " I replied that he must be aware that such
rumors had long been in circulation, and that the fact had
been positively and most circumstantially asserted in their
own public journals. "Yes (said he) but our journals are so
addicted to lyingl No! If it is supposed that we have any
little trickish policy of thrusting ourselves in there between
you and Spain, we are very much misunderstood indeed.
You shall find nothing little or shabby in our policy. We
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 503
have no desire to add an inch of ground to our territories in
any part of the world. We have as much as we want or
wish to manage. There is not a spot of ground on the globe
that I would annex to our territories, if it were offered to us
tomorrow." I remarked that the United States, without
inquiring what might in that respect be the views of Great
Britain generally, did think that with dominions so exten-
sive and various as hers, she could not wish for such an ac-
quisition as Florida, unless for purposes unfriendly to the
United States, and hence it was that these rumors had given
concern to the American government, who I was sure would
receive with pleasure the assurance given by him that no
such cession had been made. "None whatever (I quote his
words as accurately as I can recollect them). It has never
been mentioned, and if it had, it would have been decisively
declined by us. Military positions may have been taken by
us during the war of places which you had previously taken
from Spain, but we never intended to keep them. Do you
only observe the same moderation. If we shall find you
hereafter pursuing a system of encroachment upon your
neighbors, what we might do defensively is another consid-
eration."
The tone of struggling irritation and complacency with
which this was said induced me to observe, that I did not
precisely understand what he intended by this advice of
moderation. That the United States had no design of en-
croachment upon their neighbors, or of exercising any in-
justice towards Spain. Instead of an explanation he replied
only by recurring to the British policy with regard to Spain.
"You may be sure (said he) that Great Britain has no de-
sign of acquiring any addition to her possessions there.
Great Britain has done everything for Spain. We have
saved, we have delivered her. We have restored her govern-
5°4
THE WRITINGS OF [1816
ment to her, and we had hoped that the result would have
proved more advantageous to herself as well as more useful
to the world than it has been. We are sorry that the event
has not altogether answered our expectations. We lament
the unfortunate situation of her internal circumstances, owing
to which we are afraid that she can neither exercise her
own faculties for the comfort and happiness of the nation,
nor avail herself of her resources for the effectual exertion
of her power. We regret this, but we have no disposition to
take advantage of this state of things to obtain from it any
exclusive privilege for ourselves. In the unfortunate troubles
of her colonies in South America we have not only avoided
to seek, but we have declined even exclusive indulgence or
privilege to ourselves. We went even so far as to offer to take
upon us that most unpleasant and thankless of all offices,
that of mediating between the parties to those differences.
We appointed a formal mission for that purpose, who pro-
ceeded to Madrid, but there the Court of Spain declined
accepting our offer, and we have had the usual fortune of
impartiality, we have displeased both parties — the Spanish
government for not taking part with them against their
colonies, and the South Americans for not countenancing
their resistance. " I told him that the policy of the Ameri-
can government towards Spain had in this particular been
the same. They had not, indeed, made any offer of their
mediation. The state of their relations with the Spanish
government would neither have warranted nor admitted
of such an offer. But they have observed the same system
of impartial neutrality between the parties. They have
sought no peculiar or exclusive advantage for the United
States, and I was happy to hear from him that such was the
policy of Great Britain for it might have an influence upon
the views of my own government to cooperate with it. "I
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 505
have always (resumed he) avowed it to be our policy in
Parliament. We have never acknowledged the govern-
ments put up by the South Americans, because that would
not have comported with our views of neutrality. But we
have not consented to prohibit the commerce of our people
with them, because that was what Spain had no right to
require of us. Our plan in offering the mediation which
Spain rejected was, that the South Americans should submit
themselves to the government of Spain as colonies, because
we thought she had the right to authority over them as the
mother country, but that she should allow them commerce
with other nations. Nothing exclusive to us. We neither
asked, nor would have accepted, any exclusive privileges
for ourselves. We have no little or contracted policy. But
we propose that Spain should allow a liberal commercial
intercourse between her colonies and other nations, similar
to that which we allow in our possessions in India. " I then
asked him what he thought would be the ultimate issue of
this struggle in South America? Whether Spain would
subdue them, or that they would maintain their independ-
ence? He answered that everything was so fluctuating in
the councils of Spain, and generally everything was so de-
pendent upon events not to be calculated, that it was not
possible to say what the result might be. The actual state
of things was the only safe foundation for present policy
which must be shaped to events as they may happen. In
closing this part of our conversation Lord Castlereagh de-
sired me to consider all that he had said with regard to Spain,
the situation of her internal affairs, and the conduct of her
government as confidential, it having been spoken with the
most perfect freedom and openness, and that if I should re-
port it to my government I would so state it. I have there-
fore to request that it may be so received.
5o6 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
In adverting to the subject of the slaves I reminded him
that there were three distinct points relating to them which
had been under discussion between the two governments.
The first, regarding the slaves carried away by the British
commanders from the United States contrary, as the Ameri-
can government holds, to the express stipulation of the
treaty of Ghent. After referring to the correspondence
which has taken place on this topic at Washington and here,
I observe that the last note concerning it which I had re-
ceived from Lord Bathurst seemed to intimate that this
government had taken its final determination on the matter.
That I hoped it was not so. I hoped they would give it
further consideration. It had been the cause of so much
anxiety to my government; it was urged so constantly and
so earnestly in my instructions; the language of the treaty
appeared to us so clear and unequivocal, the violation of it
in carrying away the slaves so manifest, and the losses of
property occasioned by it to our citizens were so considera-
ble and so serious, that I could not abandon the hope that
further consideration would be given to it here, and ulti-
mately that satisfaction would be made to the United States
on this cause of complaint. Lord Castlereagh said that he
had not seen the correspondence to which I referred, but
that he would have it looked up and examine it. There was
I told him a special representation concerning eleven slaves
taken from Mr. Downman by the violation of a flag of truce
sent ashore by Captain Barrie. I also had received from
Lord Bathurst an answer relative to this complaint, stating
that it had been referred to Captain Barrie for a report and
giving the substance of that which he had made. It did not
disprove any of the facts alleged by Mr. Downman. But I
must remark that Captain Barrie was himself the officer who
had sent the flag of truce, and who was responsible for the
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 507
violation of it, and that as a general principle it was scarcely
to be expected that satisfaction for an injustice could ever
be obtained if the report of the person upon whom it was
charged should be received as a conclusive answer to the
complaint. He said he supposed the complaint itself was
only the allegation of an individual, and that naturally
reference must be made to the officer complained of for his
answer to the charge. I replied that the documents of which
I had furnished copies in Mr. Downman's case did not con-
sist merely of his allegations. There were affidavits of
several other persons, taken indeed ex parte, because they
could not be taken otherwise; but they were full and strong
to the points both of the violation of the flag and of the carry-
ing away of the slaves. He said he did not know how they
could proceed otherwise, unless the affair were of sufficient
importance for the appointment of commissioners by the
two governments. But he had not seen the papers and would
look into them. The third point relating to slaves I said was
the allegation made during the war that some of those se-
duced from their masters in the United States by the British
officers were afterwards sold in the West Indies. He said
he thought it was not possible, because it was expressly for-
bidden by law. I replied that I was not referring to the fact
but to the allegation. As this had been made in the midst
of the war, it had not been expected by the government of
the United States that it would be a subject of discussion
between the governments after the peace; and as it involved
many circumstances of an unpleasant nature and irritating
tendency, they would have preferred that it should be by
mutual consent laid aside and nothing further said about it.
At the same time they were ready to communicate such
evidence of the fact as they could collect, if that course should
be preferred by this government. I had made the proposal
508 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
of either alternative to the Earl of Liverpool last summer,
and he had appeared to prefer that the evidence should be
produced. I had now received a considerable mass of it, and
although preferring to repeat the proposal of dropping the
subject altogether, I would, if he should desire it, furnish
him with copies of it all. He said that so far as it might
contain matter of irritation, they had no wish to pursue the
inquiry any further. If the American government, in the
heat of war and under the feelings of that state, had ad-
vanced against the British officers a charge beyond what
the proof of facts would bear out, there was no wish here to
carry the discussion of it into the state of peace, and in that
point of view it would be readily dismissed. But with regard
to the fact they were obliged to ask for the evidence, because,
if established, it affected the character of their officers and
the observance of their laws. In that case the officers who
have been guilty should be punished and, if otherwise, it
should be known for the vindication of the character of
individuals. I remarked that in the charge as originally
made no individual had been named, but that in the docu-
ments that I had secured there were several and that from
one of the papers it appeared that slaves taken as prize were
actually sold. He said that by the last act of Parliament
those that were taken, for example, on the vessels which
carry on the slave trade by contraband, were committed to
the care of certain conservators appointed by royal author-
ity, but they were not slaves. I suggested that the docu-
ments in my possession would probably induce this govern-
ment to pursue the investigation further. That the proof
which the American government could obtain in the places
where the sales were alleged to have been made must be
imperfect. It had no control over the local authorities, but
for a full and satisfactory investigation the cooperation of
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 509
both governments would be necessary. The mode suggested
to me, and which had already been proposed by you to
Mr. Baker, was that the American government would fur-
nish lists of the slaves taken during the war, and in most
instances the names of the vessels into which they had been
taken, and that the British government should show what
disposal had been made of them. Lord Castlereagh ex-
pressed his approbation of this course of proceeding and
thought it would have the assent of this government. In
relation to the fisheries little was said. He told me that he
had the evening before read my note to him concerning
them. That the British government would adhere to their
principle respecting the treaty and to the exclusive rights of
their territorial jurisdiction. But that they had no wish to
prevent us from fishing, and would readily enter into a nego-
tiation for an arrangement on this subject. Copies have been
transmitted to you of the note I have addressed to Lord
Castlereagh, concerning a discrimination made in the ports of
Ireland between British and American vessels in regard to
the number of passengers which they are allowed to take in
proportion to their tonnage upon voyages to the United
States, of his answer and of my reply. As no answer to this
had been returned, and no determination of the government
upon my application had been known to me, I spoke of these
papers, but he avoided any explicit assurance concerning it.
He said that the regulation had perhaps been made before the
convention had been concluded. "But (said he) we might
question the application of it to the case, as the convention
was not intended to interfere in any restrictions under which
we may think proper to prevent emigration from Ireland."
I assured him that my intention had not been to object to the
regulation as a restriction upon emigration; that, I was aware,
must be exclusively the consideration of this government.
5io THE WRITINGS OF I1816
We had nothing to say about it. It was the discrimination
between the shipping of the two countries of which I had
complained. I presumed that an order to the port office
would remove the distinction. He said he did not know
that. It might be by act of Parliament, and they might
question our right to consider passengers as articles of mer-
chandize. They might regard the discrimination itself as a
mode of restriction upon emigration. "You do not want
our people" (said he), to which I readily assented, observing
that our increase of native population was sufficiently rapid
so far as mere public policy was concerned. We invited no
foreigners. We left all to individual option. "No (he re-
peated), our people and our seamen — you really do not want
them." I observed that if that were the case, this country
should rather be under obligation to us for relieving it of
such unprofitable subjects.1 He did not assent to this con-
clusion, and left me uncertain whether the regulation in ques-
tion would be removed or retained. The great length into
which this report has already run precludes any comment of
mine upon the substance of this conference, in which Lord
Castlereagh's manner was uniformly courteous, and his as-
surances of the friendly disposition of this government
towards the United States were earnest and repeated. I am
etc.
1 "The propensity to emigration is one of the most uncomfortable considera-
tions of this government, and their endeavors to prevent it are the strongest proofs
of the embarrassment which it gives them. The present state of Ireland likewise
occasions an extraordinary degree of jealousy, of which various symptoms have
recently disclosed themselves. It appears that American citizens are not permitted
to go from this country to Ireland without special passports from the Alien Office,
and that those passports are not obtained without difficulty." To the Secretary of
State, February 17, 1816. Ms.
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 511
TO ABIGAIL ADAMS
Ealing, 8 February, 1816.
My Dear Mother
• ••••••
I called a few days since upon Mrs. Copley and saw the
portrait of my dear sister 1 which she has agreed to let me
have. The likeness is excellent, but the drapery part of the
picture was never finished. Mr. Copley himself died last
September.2 I had seen him shortly after my arrival in
England. Even then he had little to resign but breath.
Mrs. Copley 3 bears her age much better, but an interval
of twenty years makes a mighty change in us all. Their
son is well settled in the practice of the law.4 The second
daughter is yet unmarried and lives with her mother, still
in the house where you knew them, No. 25 George street,
Hanover Square. Mr. West also still resides in the house
where we have always known him, No. 14 Newman street.
I have called twice to see him, but he was both times absent
in the country. . . .
TO LORD CASTLEREAGH
The undersigned Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary from the United States of America requests
the attention of Lord Castlereagh to the letter which he had
the honor of addressing to his Lordship on the 9th of August
1 Abigail (Adams) Smith. The portrait was destroyed by fire.
2 September 9, 1815.
3 Susannah Farnum Clarke, daughter of Richard Clarke of Boston.
* John Singleton Copley, Lord Lyndhurst (1772-1863).
5i2 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
and 5th of September last, in relation to the slaves belonging
to citizens of the United States carried away by the naval
commanders of the British forces from places within the
United States subsequently to the peace between the two
countries and in violation of the engagement in the first
article of the treaty of Ghent.
In pressing this subject once more upon the consideration
of His Majesty's government the undersigned deems it
necessary to state the terms of the stipulation in the treaty,
and the facts in breach of it constituting the injury for which
he is instructed to ask redress from the justice and good
faith of the British government.
The stipulation of the treaty is as follows:
All territory, places and possessions whatsoever, taken by either
party from the other during the war, or which may be taken after
the signing the treaty, excepting only the islands hereinafter men-
tioned, shall be restored without delay, and without causing any
destruction or carrying away any of the artillery or other public
property originally captured in the said forts or places, and which
shall remain therein upon the exchange of the ratification of this
treaty, or any slaves or other private property.
The facts in violation of this stipulation are, that in evac-
uating sundry places within the United States which had
been taken by the British forces during the war, the British
naval commanders did carry away great numbers of slaves
belonging to citizens of the United States. In his letter of
the 5th of September the undersigned had the honor of in-
closing a list of seven hundred and two slaves carried away,
after the ratification of the treaty of peace, from Cumber-
land Island and the waters adjacent in the state of Georgia,
by the forces under the command of Rear Admiral Cockburn,
with the names of the slaves and those of their owners, citi-
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 513
zens of the United States. A number perhaps still greater
was carried away from Tangier Island in the state of Virginia,
and from other places, lists of whom and of the proprietors
the undersigned expects to be enabled in like manner to
produce. The only foundation which these naval com-
manders have alleged for this procedure was a construction
of the paragraph containing this stipulation, so contrary to
its grammatical sense and obvious purport, that the under-
signed is well assured, if the same phrase had occurred in
any municipal contract between individuals, no judicial
tribunal in this kingdom would entertain for a moment a
question upon it — a construction under which the whole
operation of the words "slaves or other private property"
was annihilated, by extending to them the limitation con-
fined by the words of the treaty to artillery and public
property.
In addition to the unequivocal import of the words, the
undersigned in his letter of the 9th of August adduced the
manner in which the article had been drawn up, discussed,
and finally agreed upon, at the negotiation of the treaty, to
prove that the intention of the parties had been conformable
to the plain letter of the article. It was intimated in the
answer to his two letters which he had the honor of receiving
from Earl Bathurst, that some inconvenience might result
if the parties upon whom treaties are binding were to recur
to the intentions of the negotiators of such treaty, instead
of taking as their guide the context of the treaty itself, on
any point of controversy respecting it. In reply to which
the undersigned observes, that his letter did not recur to
the intentions of the negotiators, but the intentions of the
parties to the treaty as manifested in the process of drawing
up and agreeing to the article; and not even to them instead
of the context of the treaty itself, but to support and main-
5i4 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
tain the context of the treaty against what he deemed a mis-
construction, equally at variance with the rules of grammar
and the intentions of the parties.
It is observed in Lord Bathurst's answer that in this in-
stance the article as it stands was agreed to by "a verbal
amendment suggested by the American plenipotentiaries to
the original article proposed by the British Commissioners."
Far otherwise. The original article was proposed by the
American and not by the British plenipotentiaries. The
original article proposed that in evacuating the places to be
restored no property public or private, artillery or slaves
should be carried away. An alteration was proposed by the
British plenipotentiaries, and its object was to limit the
property to be restored with the places to such as had been
originally captured in the places and should be remaining
there at the time of the exchange of the ratifications. The
reason alleged for the alteration applied only to public
property. It might be impracticable to restore property
which, though originally captured in the place, might have
been removed from it before the exchange of the ratifications.
But private property, not having been subject to legitimate
capture with the place, was not liable to the reason of the
limitation, to which the American plenipotentiaries there-
fore assented only so far as related to artillery and public
property. They did not assent to it as related to slaves and
other private property. It was not a mere verbal alteration
which they proposed; they adhered in relation to slaves and
other private property to their original draft of the article,
while they consented to the proposed alteration with regard
to artillery and public property. To this qualified accept-
ance the British plenipotentiaries agreed, nor need the under-
signed remind Lord Castlereagh that the British commis-
sioners did not sign the treaty of Ghent until this article,
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 515
as finally agreed to, and every other important part of the
treaty had been submitted to the British government itself
and received their sanction and approbation.
If Lord Bathurst had taken this which is presented as the
true view of the circumstances under which the article in
question was drawn up and adopted, the undersigned is
persuaded that he would have been spared the necessity of
adverting to the following passage of his Lordship's answer,
in which the undersigned trusts that some error of a copyist
has left its meaning imperfectly expressed :
"It is certainly possible that one party may propose an
alteration with a mental reservation of some construction
of his own, and that he may assent to it on a firm persuasion
that the construction continues to be the same, and that
therefore he may conciliate and yet concede nothing by
giving his assent." The only sense which the undersigned
can discover in this sentence as it stands is, that a party may
conciliate and yet concede nothing by assenting to an altera-
tion insidiously proposed by himself. Impossible as it is
that such would have been Lord Bathurst's real meaning,
the undersigned is equally unwilling to believe that his
Lordship intended to insinuate that in the case of the stipu-
lation now in question an alteration was on the part of the
United States proposed with a mental reservation of a con-
struction not there avowed, which was assented to by Great
Britain with the firm persuasion that under the alteration
the construction would remain the same. The undersigned
must be allowed to say that there was nothing in the trans-
action referred to which could justify such an insinuation.
That the article originally drawn by the American pleni-
potentiaries and presented to the British government was
plain and clear. That it admitted of no other construction
than that for which the American government now con-
3
16 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
tends. That it avowedly and openly contained a stipula-
tion that in the evacuation of all the territories, places and
possessions to be restored, no slaves should be carried away.
That an alteration was proposed by the British plenipoten-
tiaries which was accepted only in part, that in this partial
acceptance the British government acquiesced, the under-
signed will certainly not say with a mental reservation to
make up by a subsequent construction of their own for the
part to which the United States did not assent; but he does
deem it his duty to say that when Great Britain proposed an
alteration to that, of the meaning of which there could be no
doubt, and when the alteration was accepted conditionally
and under a modification to which she agreed, she was bound
to perceive that the modification thus insisted upon by the
other party was not a mere verbal change in the phraseology
of her proposal, but so far as it extended a substantial ad-
herence to the original draft of the article. It is further urged
in Lord Bathurst's answer that the construction contended
for by the American government is inconsistent with another
article of the treaty, for that it would require the restoration
of all merchant vessels and their effects captured on the
high seas, even if they should not be within the limits of the
United States at the time of the exchange of the ratifications.
The undersigned is not aware how such an inference can be
drawn from anything that has passed between the two
governments on the subject. Merchant vessels and effects
captured on the high seas are by the laws of war between
civilized nations lawful prize, and by the capture become
the property of the captors. It was never asserted by the
American government that the stipulation in question could
mean that in evacuating the places taken within the terri-
torial jurisdiction of either party the other should be pre-
cluded from carrying away his own property. But as by
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 517
the same usages of civilized nations private property is not
the subject of lawful capture in war upon the land, it is per-
fectly clear that in every stipulation that private property
shall be respected, or that upon the restoration of places
taken during the war it shall not be carried away, the mean-
ing of the expressions is denned by the subject-matter to
which they relate, and extends only to the property of the
party from whom the place was taken or of persons under
his allegiance. But in the present case it will not be pre-
tended that the slaves whose removal is complained of as a
breach of the compact were the property either of his
Majesty, of the naval officers in her service who carried them
away, or of any of his subjects. They were the property of
citizens of the United States, precisely the species of property
which it was expressly stipulated should not be carried away;
and far from setting up now, as is suggested in Lord Bath-
urst's note, a construction not thought of when the treaty
was formed, the American government do but claim the
performance of the stipulation in the only sense which could
be applied to it at that time. That the British government
gave it then any other construction was not only never com-
municated to the government of the United States, but was
impossible to be foreseen by them. When Great Britain
had solemnly agreed without hinting an objection to the
principle of restoring captured slaves, it could not be fore-
seen that the engagement would be narrowed down to
nothing by a strained extension to them of a condition
limited by the words of the treaty to another species of
property. It was impossible to anticipate a construction of
an important stipulation which should annihilate its opera-
tion. It was impossible to anticipate that a stipulation not
to carry away any slaves would by the British government
be considered as faithfully executed by British officers in
5i8 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
carrying away all the slaves in their possession. The under-
signed concludes with the earnest hope that His Majesty's
government, reviewing the subject in the spirit of candor
and of justice, will accede to the proposal which he had been
instructed to offer, and make provision to indemnify the
owners of the slaves which were carried away in contraven-
tion to the engagement of the treaty. He is happy to avail
himself of the occasion to renew to Lord Castlereagh the
assurance of his high consideration.
13 Craven street, 17 February, 18 16.
TO WILLIAM PLUMER
Ealing near London, 27 February, 18 16.
My Dear Friend:
• • • • • * •
Several of my friends have given me accounts of your hur-
ricane in September and of the subsequent influenza; but I
am certainly not proficient enough either in physics or in
philosophy to form an opinion whether they were totally
distinct or associated phenomena of nature. In general I
distrust the system of connecting together in the relation of
cause and effect extraordinary things merely because they
happen at or near the same time. It savors of judicial as-
trology. It is the comet which from its horrid hair shakes
pestilence and war. Mr. Noah Webster published a book
about the yellow fever,1 where he pushed this concatenating
humor to such a length that I have been looking over the
advertisements in the late American newspapers to see if
he had not come out with a volume to prove that both the
hurricane and influenza were direct consequences of the
Hartford Convention. . . .
1 A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases, Hartford, 1799.
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 519
The present situation of this country is singular and
worthy of very attentive observation. The issue of the long
and bloody wars in which they have been engaged for up-
wards of twenty years has been (with the exception of the
American war, upon which they are sore precisely because
it was a drawn game) in their view prosperous and glorious
beyond their most sanguine hopes and beyond all former
example. Their naval and military fame surpasses in their
own eyes everything that the world ever saw or ever will see.
They have a legitimate King of France reigning under the
protection of the Duke of Wellington, and a King of Spain
of whose legitimacy whatever may be the doubts, at least,
as Lord Castlereagh has boasted in Parliament, dependent,
literally dependent upon them for his daily bread. They
are (so again they boast) in close alliance and unsuspicious
undissembled friendship with all the other great powers on
the continent of Europe, irresistible in Africa, triumphant
in Asia, distributing crowns and sceptres with one hand and
dispensing freedom to slaves with the other. Yet all this
availeth them nothing owing to the depreciation of the nec-
essaries of life. They are perishing by plethora, staggering
under a political apoplexy.
The Regent in his speceh to Parliament earnestly recom-
mends economy, and his ministers propose a peace establish-
ment of thirty millions sterling of expenditure for the year,
besides the interest upon the debt — an army of 150,000 men
and a navy of 33,000. To defray all this they are obliged to
continue almost all the burdensome war taxes which the
faith of Parliament was pledged to discontinue immediately
after the peace. And all this while the whole agricultural
interest is suffering under a depression of the prices of their
produce of nearly one-half. The distress is indeed much ex-
aggerated, as is proved by the produce of the revenue and
52o THE WRITINGS OF [1816
especially of the excise, which has been this year more
abundant than it has ever been before; but there has been
greater difficulty in collecting the taxes, and that of rents
has very considerably failed. The petitions against the
large peace establishment and the war taxes are numerous,
but the ministerial majority in Parliament is overwhelming
and they will probably carry through their plan. It will
however be followed by great discontent, and if the pressure
should continue, with important consequences. I am etc.
TO JOHN ADAMS
Ealing, 29 February, 18 16.
Dear Sir:
• • • • • • •
You have doubtless seen what Alexander the Blessed (a
title which his Imperial Senate at the instigation of the Arch-
bishop Metropolitan of the Empire sent a solemn deputa-
tion of three Alexanders to offer him, but which he has the
good sense and modesty to decline) has been doing with my
old friends the Jesuits. When I gave you the account of the
pains which the venerable Father General took to convert
so obstinate a heretic as myself, I did not know that he and
his associates had so far overreached their own wisdom as
to venture upon the same experiment with the religious creed
of the country, where they themselves, as I very clearly saw,
were but indulged with a jealous and reluctant toleration.
Yet I had other indications of their proselyting zeal besides
the worthy Father's obliging solicitude for my salvation;
for they did actually convert, receive into the bosom of the
church, and baptize with much public solemnity, two negro
men, who were successively my servants, and one of whom
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 521
I had taken with me from America. Still the Father General,
who gave me an account of their college and of their system
of education at it, repeatedly told me that they never inter-
fered with the religious principles of those of their pupils
who were not of their own church, but left them altogether
to the teachers in that particular of their respective denom-
inations; and the jealousy with which they were regarded
by the national priesthood of the Greek church I could easily
discern. That they may have been indiscreet in their rest-
less anxiety for the propagation of their faith, I think very
probable. Mr. Harris, our charge d'affaires, writes me that
the decree against them has given universal satisfaction;
but that is neither proof of their guilt, nor justification of
the manner in which they have been punished. I have felt
much compassion for them. Their learning was of a much
better kind than that of the Greek clergy, and their college
was the only good school for classical education in the coun-
try. They have been expelled, turned adrift upon the world,
and deprived of their property without a trial, by the mere
will of the Emperor, upon secret investigations and accusa-
tions of enemies and rivals, to all appearance without having
been allowed even a hearing to defend themselves.1 Such
are the forms of autocracy even in the hands of the mild, the
magnanimous, the pious Alexander, immediately after pub-
lishing his holy autograph league and covenant with his
imperial and royal brethren of Austria and Prussia.2
The Temple of Janus will not be long closed; but oh! may
we not be the first to open it. From rumors circulating here
it would seem as if we were getting seriously into a quarrel
1 On the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773 by Clement XIV, members of the
order sought refuge in Russia and received recognition from the Czar; but in 18 16
the order was driven from Moscow and St. Petersburg, mainly on the charge of
attempted proselytizing in the imperial army.
* Hie Holy Alliance.
522 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
with Spain. It is much to be deprecated. From Spain we
have nothing to fear, but let us keep at peace with all the
world, until something foreign or domestic shall seriously
employ the energies of this nation. Long we shall certainly
not need to wait. A crisis approaches here, more formidable
than any that they have yet encountered. Let their debt,
and taxes, and overweening pride, have its own natural and
inevitable course, and they will soon prey too deeply upon
their vitals to be dangerous to us. Their establishment for
the present year is avowedly calculated upon an engage-
ment to maintain by force the Bourbons on the throne of
France and upon the chance of a war with America. Upon
those two pillars they have raised a necessity for a standing
army of a hundred and fifty thousand men, and for an ex-
penditure of thirty millions, besides the interest of their
debt. Let us not give them the chance of war, and they will
soon be obliged to discard their system for one of real peace,
or it will sink them. I am etc.
TO ABIGAIL ADAMS
Ealing, 4 March, 18 16.
My Dear Mother:
• • • • • • •
In one of your former letters you have expressed some
curiosity for further particulars respecting my last winter's
visit to Paris. It was in many respects the most agreeable
interlude, if I may so call it, of my life. It was after an in-
terval of thirty years that I revisited that great city, where
all the fascinations of a luxurious metropolis had first
charmed the senses of my childhood, and dazzled the imagi-
nation of my youth. I was at an age when the hey-day of
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 523
the blood is tame, and waits upon the judgment. I had seen
much of the world during the interval between the two
periods, and was capable of estimating more nearly at their
real worth the enchantments of that fairy land. I had entire
leisure, and a mind, not merely at ease, but enjoying relief
from a weight of anxiety almost insupportable for the situa-
tion and prospects of my country — a relief which had been
equally complete and unexpected. I arrived at Paris in the
midst of a carnival week, to which the partisans of the re-
stored Bourbons were ostentatiously and painfully striving
to give an air of revival to the festivities which had been
peculiar to that season in ancient times. I saw the gloomy
court of Louis 18, and the splendid circles of the Duke of
Orleans. I frequented the unparalleled assemblage of the
masterpieces of art in the Museum of Napoleon and in that
of the French monuments, the meetings of the National
Institute, the Courts of Law, the theatres, the collections
of mechanical models, the Gobelin tapestry manufacture,
and even the deserted churches and the subterraneous cata-
combs. Although the king's ministers were singularly shy,
and avoided all notice whatsoever of the American diplomats
from Ghent, I found society as much as I could desire, until
the landing of Napoleon. I visited and dined at Madame de
Stael's, and at our very old friend's, Mr. Marbois. I visited
the Duke de la Vauguyon, but though he sent me a very
civil message, he neither received me nor returned my visit.
From the time of Napoleon's appearance at Cannes all that
sort of society was at an end. Most of my acquaintance
were dispersed, but I was indemnified for the loss by the safe
arrival of my wife and Charles, safe from the long and not
unperilous winter journey from Russia. After that time,
however, the situation of Paris and of France became far
less agreeable for the abode of a travelling visitor. The com-
524 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
munications with the rest of Europe were immediately cut
off. The prospects of the country were from day to day
growing darker and more threatening. The combination
of all Europe against them, as it became continually more
apparent, kindled afresh all the flames of their civil discord;
a fearful foreboding of the fate that awaited them took pos-
session of the public mind and, before we left France, I was
strongly impressed with the expectation of the issue which
so shortly afterwards ensued. Napoleon himself had no
doubt presentiments of the same kind. I saw him only at
the windows of the Tuileries, and once at Mass; and I was
present the only evening that he attended at the Theatre
Francais. The performance was by his direction the tragedy
of Hector, one of the best that has been brought upon the
French stage since the death of Voltaire. It was written by
a professor at the university of Paris, named Luce de Lanci-
val, now dead, and from its first appearance had been a
favorite with the Emperor. It turns of course upon the
interest of a heroic character, who deliberately sacrifices his
life to the defence of his country, and its principal merit
consists in the adaptation to the drama of some of the most
affecting scenes and sublimest sentiments of Homer, trans-
lated into such French verse as Racine himself might have
owned. The house was so crowded that the very musicians
of the orchestra were obliged to give up their seats, and re-
tire to perform their symphonies behind the scenes. And
never at any public theatre did I witness such marks of
public veneration, and such bursts of enthusiasm for any
crowned head, as that evening exhibited for Napoleon. I
certainly was not among his admirers when he was in the
plenitude of his power, and I remember that David, the man
after God's own heart, was forbidden to build a temple to
his God, because he had "shed blood abundantly and made
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 525
great wars." Napoleon is no fit person to built a temple to
the name of the Lord. But "neither do the spirits reprobate
all virtue base." Had the name of Napoleon Bonaparte
remained among those of the conquerors of the earth, it
would not have been the blackest upon the list; and as to
the mob of legitimates, who by his fall have been cast again
upon their tottering and degraded thrones, where is the
head or the heart among them capable of rising to the ad-
miration of such a character as Hector? Their Hector be-
longs not to tragedy but to comedy; not the champion of
Trov, but the knave of diamonds.
My visits to the National Museum were frequent, but
such was the magnificence, and such the variety of its treas-
ures, that daily visits for many months would have been
necessary to give distinct ideas of the individual merit of
almost every work of art in the collection. The antique
statues were very numerous, but those from which I derived
the least satisfaction, were precisely those from which I
had anticipated the most. The Apollo, the Venus de Medicis,
and the Laocoon, — I had seen so many and such excellent
copies of these that I was unable to discover any new excel-
lence in the originals. And the Venus in particular was
so much mutilated, and so much restored, that she too
strongly displayed the perishable attribute of beauty, even
in marble. Those which gave me the greatest pleasure were
originals of which I had seen no copies, and they were for
the most part busts. Among them was a small Hippocrates,
of great antiquity, and bearing in the face so strong a re-
semblance to our late excellent friend, Dr. Rush, that had 1
seen it in a copy of modern marble, I should have pronounced
without hesitation that it had been taken from him.
The gallery of pictures was immense, but so much ac-
cumulation of excellence is rather unfavorable to the proper
526 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
estimation of every separate masterpiece. I had seen before
at Antwerp, at the Hague, and at Potsdam, many of the
most admirable pictures in the collection, and I had seen at
Dresden one picture of Raphael which had so absorbed my
whole stock of enthusiasm, that I had little ardor of ecstacy
left even for the unrivalled beauties of the Transfiguration.
I could have returned and spent two or three hours every
day for a twelvemonth with new delight in this paradise of
human art, but limited as I was in time, the pleasure which
I enjoyed was not unmixed with confusion, like that which
obscures the vision immediately after looking at the sun.
The Museum is now no more, and as I shall never again
have the opportunity of beholding such a collection of the
wonders of human genius, the remembrance of the hours
that I passed in contemplating affords me a satisfaction
almost as lively as that which I took in the enjoyment
itself. . . .
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
No. 34. [James Monroe]
London, 6th March, 1816.
Sir:
On the 1st instant I called upon Lord Castlereagh at his
house to which he was then confined by a slight indisposi-
tion. I had received a letter from Mr. Luke, the Consul at
Belfast, inclosing one from several masters of American ves-
sels at Londonderry to Mr. Thomas Davenport, Vice Consul
at that place, complaining of the discrimination between
British and American vessels with regard to the number of
passengers which they are allowed to take from the Irish
ports. Lord Castlereagh apologized for not having replied
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 527
to the several notes which he had received from me, alleging
his indisposition and the great pressure of business at this
time in Parliament. I told him there was only one of the
subjects upon which I was anxious for an immediate deci-
sion, and that was this discrimination in Ireland. There
were a number of American vessels now at Londonderry
whose masters were waiting only for this decision, and if it
should be against them would be obliged to return home in
ballast, or come in search of freights to English ports. He
said if there had not been an earlier decision, it was not from
any indisposition here to meet us in giving the fullest effect
to the principle of equalizing the duties upon the vessels of
both nations, and they were desirous of arranging this dif-
ference in Ireland to our satisfaction, and without at the
same time touching upon the question of their policy in the
existing restriction as a check upon emigration. But he in-
quired how it was with regard to the execution of the conven-
tion of 3rd July, 18 1 5, in America? Observing that he had
seen that a bill for carrying it into execution which had passed
in the House of Representatives of the United States had
been rejected by the Senate, I told him that I had no com-
munication from the government relating to the convention
since its ratification, but that by the Constitution of the
United States as soon as the ratifications were exchanged it
became the law of the land. It must and would of course
be executed, and by the public accounts in the gazettes with
respect to the bill to which he referred, it appeared that the
difference of opinion between the two houses of Congress
arose, not from any disposition in either to oppose the execu-
tion of the convention, but from a question whether an act
of Congress was or was not necessary to give it effect. He
then intimated that he had information that there had been
some difficulty as to its actual execution, and asked me if I
528 THE WRITINGS OF [1S16
could state the time from which it had been understood
to commence in favor of British vessels in America? I said
that was a matter about which I believed it would be neces-
sary to come to a mutual understanding. It was usual to
consider treaties as commencing to operate from the time of
the exchange of the ratifications. In this case, at the proposal
of the British plenipotentiaries, the convention was ex-
pressly made binding upon the parties for four years from
the day of the signature. For some time after it was signed
an extra duty had been levied here upon cotton imported
in American vessels. I had conversed upon the subject with
Mr. Robinson, one of the British plenipotentiaries who
signed the convention, and afterwards with the Earl of
Liverpool last summer. An Order in Council had issued in
August removing this duty upon cotton. Of all this you had
been informed. I had received a letter from you, written
shortly after the ratification of the convention, expressing
the expectation that it would be ratified, observing that the
President had not previously issued a proclamation revoking
the discriminating duties, because the Order in Council of
August had never been officially communicated, and because
it did not extend to tonnage duties. My own opinion had
been that the obligations of the convention commenced
from the day of its signature, and that whatever extra duties
contrary to it had been since then levied by either govern-
ment must be refunded. He said it was then evident that
there was yet something to be done to give the convention
its full effect; that as Mr. Robinson had been one of the
British plenipotentiaries who had signed it, he would ask
him to appoint a day to meet me and agree upon some ar-
rangement, adding that there would be some inconvenience
refunding duties already collected. As to the duties col-
lected at the Trinity House, light money for the maintenance
i8i6j JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 529
of light houses, they were levied by the particular charter
of that corporation; he thought the government could not
remove them, and that they were not included among the
duties and charges contemplated by the convention. I ob-
served that if that was the understanding, it was necessary
that we should know it, similar charges of light money and
for the same purpose of maintaining light houses being
levied in the United States; and if the principle of equaliza-
tion should not be applied to them here, it would of course
not be applicable to them there. He renewed the assurance
that they were cordially disposed to give the fullest practi-
cable effect to it, and said that as to the case of the passengers
from Ireland they would put the ships of the two countries
on the same footing, either by reducing the restriction upon
American vessels to the same scale as that upon British ves-
sels, or by increasing that upon the British to the standard
of that upon the American. . . .
The ministers are very hard pressed in Parliament and by
petitions from all parts of the country against the renewal
of the property tax. It is said even to be doubtful whether
they can carry it by a majority in the House of Commons.
But they are determined to have a vote there for or against
it. It is not impossible that they may be more willing to
lose the question than to carry it, but the question they must
have. They will undoubtedly carry all their establishments
and their expenditure of twenty-nine millions for the year.
The precarious state of the pacific relations with America
has been distinctly stated by Lord Castlereagh and others
of the ministers as reasons among others for maintaining
the army of 150,000 men, and even the opposition have ad-
mitted the necessity of the 9,500 men for Canada and Nova
Scotia.
I am etc.
53o THE WRITINGS OF [1816
TO JONATHAN RUSSELL
Ealing near London, 8th March, 1816.
Dear Sir:
My residence at this distance from the capital has de-
prived me of the pleasure of seeing Mr. Lawrence during the
short time that he was in this country. I received however
your friendly letter of the nth January of which he was the
bearer. He came with the intention of visiting France before
his return home but while here changed his mind and went a
few days since to embark directly for New York at Liverpool.
You are regularly supplied with the Morning Chronicle but
do not see Cobbett's Register. His paper however, from the
turn that he has taken and the turn that the affairs of the
world are likely to take, has become so interesting not only
to Americans but in regard to the condition of this country,
that I wish you could see all his present publications. His
representation of the state of England is colored with all
the exaggerations that belong to his character, and yet there
are facts disclosing themselves from day to day which indi-
cate that his picture, caricature as it is, bears a stronger re-
semblance to the original than those of any other painter
of the British periodical press. He is now in the execution
of a project which, if not baffled by legal interpositions
against which he appears to think himself secure, is to pub-
lish his Register cotemporaneously both at London and at
New York, but the New York edition is to contain all the
matter that he deems it not expedient to publish in England.
His influence upon the public mind in America will be much
greater than it is here, where he is so much out of credit with
all the political parties that they scarcely take any more
notice of his paper than if it had no existence. It was how-
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 531
ever in his paper that the first indications were given of
what is now called the general distress of the country. It
was so much kept out of sight from all other quarters until
the meeting of Parliament that his papers appeared to me
as if they contained the imaginary description of another
world. The proposition to continue the property tax re-
duced to five per cent and otherwise modified, together with
that of maintaining an army of 149,000 men, and of pro-
viding for an expenditure of 29 millions for the present year,
has drawn forth grievous complaints and earnest petitions
from all parts of the country, and they all state that the
people, particularly the farmers, are in great distress. But
although this has tended to confirm the representations of
Cobbett in some degree, there are strong facts to show that
the distress is by no means general, and that in the only
particular which would render it formidable to the govern-
ment it does not even exist. Among his other predictions
Cobbett foretold a falling off in the revenue of at least one
third. But the revenue of 181 5 yielded upwards of sixty-six
millions, an excess of a million and a half beyond that of any
preceding year. And almost the same excess appears in the
single article of excise, a duty upon consumption, which if
there was any general failure of prosperity in the country
would be the first to show a deficiency. Cobbett prophesies
like Joanna Southcott. When the time for the accomplish-
ment of his prediction arrives without fulfilling it, he ad-
journs it to another day. He now says the deficiencies will
appear next July. But if one portion of the people are
obliged to diminish the amount of their voluntary taxes,
another portion acquire the means of indulging themselves
by the increase of theirs, and July, like January, will prob-
ably bring an undiminished and perhaps augmented tribute
to the revenue. It is evident that no material falling off is
532 THE WRITINGS OF [18x6
anticipated by the government, and their security upon a
point of such infinite importance to them is more truly
prophetical than the loose speculations of Cobbett. I do
nevertheless perceive that when the farmer pays two bushels
of wheat during peace for the same taxes which in war time
he discharged with one, the unavoidable consequence must
be individual distress and it may be to a great extent. There
are indeed two things towards which the state of this country
would seem to tend irresistibly, should it continue at peace,
and which in any other country would have a most ominous
and terrifying aspect. The one is a deadly collision of in-
terest between the landowners and the fundholders; and
the other an intestine war of debtors and creditors. But
this country has so long and so triumphantly given the lie
to every sober calculation and every prudent maxim of
political economy, that all foresight is put to the blush, and
the natural connection between sound reasoning and just
conclusion is dissolved. The fact of every day bears down
the unanswerable argument of every yesterday. Far be it
then from me to say that the Bank of England will not be
able to resume payments in cash and yet pay forty millions
a year of interest upon the national debt, or that a debt of a
thousand millions sterling may not admit of further and in-
definite accumulation without ever becoming insupportable.
Abstractly speaking such assertion might safely be made.
We are still to see whether they will ever prove true in
England. There are accounts from the United States to the
5th of last month. Congress had been two months in session,
but appear to have done nothing of importance. There
seems to be something like an explosion with Spain which
I am afraid could not be avoided, but which at this time is
greatly to be regretted. Our finances are still in great con-
fusion and a new war so soon will much increase the difrl-
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 533
culty of bringing them again into order. Mr. Dallas has
again proposed a national bank, a measure about which both
parties have trifled like children. While our whole military
peace establishment is ten thousand men, all parties are
agreed here to keep within 500 of the same number in Canada
and Nova Scotia. Lord Castlereagh says the United States
have become a great military power, and Lord Palmerston
declares that in the event of a new war Britain must be
prepared to defend her West India islands against a naval
expedition from the United States. See what the five fair
frigates and the bits of striped bunting have come to.
I shall send you by Mr. Connell a small packet of letters
from America which came under cover to me by one of the
last vessels that has arrived. Our lively Ghent Secretary,1
who makes laws and speeches and puns in the Maryland
House of Assembly, writes me now and then a pleasant
letter. Shaler is comfortably settled at Algiers and I have
the advantage also of a correspondence with him, not of puns,
but grave, solemn, and statistical. He has given me very
useful information about the barbarians. Believe me etc.
TO LORD CASTLEREAGH
The Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary
from the United States of America has the honor of inviting
the attention of Lord Castlereagh to a letter which, on the
7th of October last, the undersigned addressed to Earl Bath-
urst, in relation to eleven slaves the property of Raleigh
W. Downman, a citizen of the United States, alleged to have
been taken and carried away by the violation of a flag of
truce sent by Captain Barrie, commander of His Majesty's
1 Christopher Hughes.
534
THE WRITINGS OF [1816
ship Dragon. With this letter were inclosed copies of Mr.
Downman's memorial to the President of the United States
representing the facts, and of several other documents to
substantiate them, to all which the undersigned now begs
leave to refer Lord Castlereagh.
The undersigned had the honor of receiving from Lord
Bathurst an answer to this letter acquainting him that Cap-
tain Barrie himself had been immediately referred to for
such particulars as he might be enabled to give upon this
subject, and communicating the substance of his report upon
this reference.
There are many particulars in this statement of Captain
Barrie which, appearing to have no bearing upon the special
object of inquiry" and tending rather to draw the attention
from it to other points of discussion, might with propriety
be left unnoticed but for the insinuations that they convey.
He remarks, for instance, that at the period in question the
violation of a flag of truce was a very tender subject with
him, and he refers to a previous correspondence in which he
had been engaged with the commanding officer of the United
States forces at Norfolk, on want of respect paid to British
flags of truce upon occasion of one of his own having been
fired upon. The undersigned might deem it sufficient to
say that this was not the subject upon which Captain Barrie
was called for information. As the Captain does not recol-
lect the violation by his own people of the flag sent by him-
self, he did not mean to allege it was a retaliation upon that
of which another flag sent by himself had been the sufferer.
Yet he avows that if slaves fugitives from their masters had
been received on board a flag sent by himself, he would not
have restored them to their owners without an express order
from his commander in chief — a tenderness for a flag of
truce upon which the undersigned forbears to comment.
i8i6l JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 535
Of the particular incident asserted by Captain Barrie the
undersigned has no cognizance. But so far as this part of
that officer's narrative may be understood as intending an
imputation upon American officers, or the American govern-
ment, of disrespect to the sacred character of a flag, the
undersigned will only remind Lord Castlereagh of the re-
peated offers made by the government of the United States
during the war, and by the American plenipotentiaries at
the negotiation of the peace, to punish every infraction of
the most liberal laws of war on their part, and to indemnify
as far as possible every sufferer under them. It was in the
power of Great Britain to have accepted these offers on the
single condition of reciprocity. The correctness of two of
the documents transmitted by the undersigned to Lord Bath-
urst and marked A and B is admitted by Captain Barrie.
He declares that he never received the document marked D,
a circumstance acknowledged in Mr. Downman's memorial,
and accounted for by the statement that before a vessel
could be procured to bear the flag with this letter the British
vessels had left the Chesapeake.
With regard to the violation of the flag of truce and the
taking and carrying away of the slaves, Captain Barrie
states in general terms that he has no recollection of any
slaves ever having been received on board any flag of truce
during the time he was intrusted with the command of the
Chesapeake squadron, and that if such a circumstance did
occur, it was without his knowledge or authority. The fact
of the violation of the flag and of the taking and carrying
away of the slaves is testified in the papers transmitted to
Earl Bathurst, by the depositions upon oath of four wit-
nesses, and His Majesty's government did not consider the
transaction as duly investigated, or that justice had been
done to the complaining party, merely because Captain Bar-
536 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
rie had stated the fact not to be within his recollection or
knowledge. It was mentioned in Lord Bathurst's note that
a communication would forthwith be made to Admiral Cock-
burn, for the purpose of obtaining further information upon
the subject with which, it is added, he must have been ac-
quainted, as it appears he had arrived in the Chesapeake
before the surgeon's mate was restored.
The undersigned can urge no objection to any source of
information to which His Majesty's government may deem
it expedient to resort for ascertaining the facts to their own
satisfaction. But he thinks it proper to suggest that there
are other sources which might also tend to the elucidation
of the facts. Perhaps Captain Barrie could indicate the
name of the officer by whom he sent the flag. Mr. Jeffery,
the surgeon's mate, whose restoration was the object of the
flag and who actually returned with it, might give some light
upon the subject. The captain and officers of the Havanna
must be supposed to have known something of the affair.
But independently of the recollection of all officers them-
selves, so materially and so pointedly interested in the result
of the inquiry, from the documents transmitted by the under-
signed it appears that one of the slaves made his escape from
the island of Bermuda and returned to his master. Informa-
tion respecting the others might then be easily obtained by
the British government from Bermuda. That the slaves
were taken the undersigned believes cannot admit of a
doubt. How they were disposed of is a question interesting
to the solicitude which His Majesty's government have felt
upon an allegation which has been considered as implicating
the character of British officers. The violation of a flag con-
stitutes in this instance an aggravation which seems to call
with peculiar energy for a complete and unequivocal in-
vestigation.
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 537
The undersigned is persuaded that His Majesty's govern-
ment will feel it to be due to the complaint of the individual,
to the honor of their officers, and to their own sense of
justice.
He has the honor of renewing to Lord Castlereagh the
assurances of his high consideration.
13 Craven street, 12th March, 18 16.
TO ALEXANDER HILL EVERETT
Ealing near London, 16 March, 1816.
Dear Sir:
• • •
Your letter of nth March, 1815, principally relates to two
subjects, now obsolete enough; but one of which, the victory
at New Orleans, will always be in season to the memory of
Americans; and the other, the peace of Ghent, will I hope
prove to be likewise composed of durable materials. Judg-
ing as the character of all political measures should be judged
from the existing circumstances of the time, the peace was
undoubtedly seasonable and was probably as good a one as
could have been obtained; but all who, like you, have de-
voted their lives to the honor and welfare of their country,
will remember that the peace did not obtain the objects for
which the war was waged. From which every mind not
besotted by the spirit of faction may draw two conclusions:
one of caution against commencing war without a fair pros-
pect of attaining its objects, as well as a good cause; the
other, that the object of the last war must perhaps, and not
improbably, be fought for again. In an enlarged point of
view the war was much more beneficial than injurious to our
country. It has raised our national character in the eyes of
538 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
all Europe. It has demonstrated that the United States are
both a military and a naval power, with capacities which may
hereafter place them in both these respects on the first line
among the nations of the earth. It has given us generals,
and admirals, and subordinate officers, by land and sea, to
whom we may hereafter look with confidence for the support
of our national rights and interests in war, if the necessity
should recur. It has partly removed the prejudice against
that best and safest of national defences, an efficient navy.
And it has shown us many secrets of our own strength and
weakness, until then not sufficiently known to ourselves,
and to which it is to be hoped we shall not hereafter wilfully
shut our eyes. But some of the worst features in our com-
position that it has disclosed are deformities which, if not
inherent in the very nature of our constitution, will require
great, anxious and unremitting care to enable us to outgrow
them. The most disgusting of them all is the rancorous
spirit of faction which drove one part of the country head-
long towards the dissolution of the union, and towards a
treacherous and servile adherence to the enemies of the
country. This desertion from the standard of the nation
weakened all its exertions to such a degree that it required
little less than a special interposition of Providence to save
us from utter disgrace and dismemberment; and although
the projects of severing the Union were signally disconcerted
by the unexpected conclusion of the peace, they were too
deeply seated in the political systems, as well as in the views
of personal ambition of the most leading men in our native
state, to be yet abandoned. They will require to be watched,
exposed, and inflexibly resisted, probably for many years.
You have doubtless been informed that a few days after I
last wrote you, Mr. J. A. Smith arrived here as secretary of
legation to this court, and since the meeting of Congress his
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 539
appointment has been confirmed by the Senate. Whether
the government inferred from his personal relation to me
this appointment would of course be agreeable to me, or
whether it was made upon distinct considerations, and with-
out reference to my wishes at all, I think it necessary, from
what had previously passed between you and me, to state
that your name is the only one that I ever recommended to
the government for the office, and that although I knew he
had been recommended for it by others, his appointment to
it was altogether unexpected by me, until I was informed it
had actually taken place.
It is natural that you should entertain some solicitude
with regard to your future prospects, and your idea is just
that the situation of secretary to an American legation in
Europe is no permanent prospect for a condition in life. The
government of the United States have no system of dip-
lomatic gradation, and the instances of persons who have
commenced as secretaries of legation and afterwards re-
ceived higher appointments have been very few. But the
reason of this has been, because most of the secretaries have
been young men, who obtained their appointments by the
influence and solicitations of their friends, and who after
obtaining it think more of their own pleasure than of the
public service. They come to Europe not to toil, but to en-
joy; to dangle about courts and solace themselves for the
rest of their lives, with the delightful reflection that kings
or princes have looked at them, to see sights, to frequent
theatres, balls, masquerades, and fashionable society. I
speak not of those who have sunk into baser and more vicious
pursuits; nor of those who come to make themselves scien-
tific, or virtuosi. Scarcely one in fifty ever came to his duty,
and nothing but his duty, or to devote his leisure to the ac-
quisition of the proper diplomatic knowledge. The habits
54o THE WRITINGS OF [1816
of life into which they fall relax their industry into indolence,
and turn their activity to dissipation. They go home with
heads as empty, and with hearts fuller of vanity, than they
came; generally with a hankering to return to Europe, and
almost always with a distaste to the manners and institu-
tions of their own country, disdaining or disqualified to take
a part in its public affairs, and incapable of making them-
selves necessary, either to the general government, or to any
of the political parties in the country.
Nothing of all this applies to you. Had your station been
assigned to the mission here, you would have found that the
mere drudgery of the office would have absorbed all, and
more than all your time. At The Hague you have much
leisure, and I am quite sure you are making good use of it.
You will never for an instant forget that you are responsible
to your country for the employment of every hour; that
every moment not devoted to the discharge of present duty
must be given to the acquisition of future capability. You
will never adopt the fancy of the school boy, who left school
and went home because he had learnt out. But as you have
asked my advice, I cannot in candor recommend it to you to
remain long in your present station under the idea that it
will lead to something better. After a suitable period, prop-
erly employed, I should say return home, and resume your
station at the Bar. Take an interest and exercise an in-
fluence in the public affairs. You must steel your heart and
prepare your mind to encounter multitudes of political
enemies, and to endure all the buffetings without which there
is no rising to distinction in the American world. When the
knaves and fools open upon you in full pack, take little or no
notice of them, and be careful not to lose your temper.
Preserve your private character and reputation unsullied,
and confine your speculations upon public concerns to ob-
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 541
jects of high and national importance. You will certainly
be favored with no patronage, political or professional, by
the prevailing party at Boston; but you must make your way
in opposition to and in defiance of them. Their system is
rotten to the core, and you may render essential service to
the nation by persevering exertions against it. I will give
you one word which you may lay down as the foundation of
the whole political system to which you may boldly and
safely devote from this moment all the energies of your
character, all your talents, and all your genius — that word
is Union. Let that be the center from which all your future
exertions emanate, and to which all your motives tend. Let
your conduct be at once bold, resolute, and wary; preserve
inflexibly your personal independence, even while acting in
concurrence with any party, and take my word for it, you
will not need to go in search for public office, at home or
abroad. For public office, at home or abroad, at your option
will soon come in search of you.
Be good enough to present my best remembrance to
Mr. Eustis, to whom I am yet indebted for a letter, and
propose shortly to write. Apthorp did not bring Turreau's
book upon America.1 That illustrious Vendean general told
me last spring that he intended to publish a book against us.
I did not think the worse of him or ourselves for that. Lau-
dari a laudato has a counterpart which will easily reconcile
me to his vituperation.
Our accounts from the United States do not appear propi-
tious to your projects of perpetual peace. Once the Span-
iard,2 they say, has sprung a mine at Washington and gone
off. But I have not room to expatiate, and must remain ever
faithfully yours.
1 Apercu sur la Situation Politique des Etats-Unis a" Amerique, Paris, 18:5.
2 Don Luis dc Onis.
542
THE WRITINGS OF I1816
TO ABIGAIL ADAMS
Ealing, 25th March, 18 16.
My Dear Mother:
The climate here is a paradise compared with that of
St. Petersburg, where life itself scarcely deserves to be called
existence. I left that country a skeleton, and verily believe
that before the end of another winter I should have left the
skeleton there. Since the day that I quitted the banks of
the frozen Neva I have been steadily redeeming flesh, until,
notwithstanding the drawback of the last autumn, my great-
est apprehension now is of becoming unwieldy and lazy.
My eyes are not much worse than they were before the
violent attack which for several weeks deprived me of their
services; but it is in the right hand that I most seriously feel
the effect of declining years. You cannot fail to have per-
ceived it in my handwriting. It was just perceptible to
myself in the second winter of my residence in Prussia, and
has been gradually and regularly increasing ever since. It
is now painful to me to hold a pen, and I write so slowly that
if my necessary correspondence should much increase, I
should be obliged to employ habitually an amanuensis and
write altogether by the hand of another. How soon I may
be reduced to that expedient depends upon a wiser will than
mine. The secretary of legation at this court is, I believe,
of opinion that I yet write quite rapidly enough. None of
the gentlemen who have ever assisted me in that capacity,
from my brother in 1794, to Mr. J. A. Smith in 1816, has
had cause to complain for want of employment; but the in-
dispensable correspondence here is incessant, and the month
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 543
during which I was confined threw it into such arrears that
they are scarcely yet recovered. Besides the public business
with the British government, and the official reports to be
made to our own, the mission here is in correspondence with
ministers, agents, or consuls of the United States in Russia,
Sweden, Holland, France, Spain, Italy, the Barbary coast
and Brazil; with the commanders of the American squadron
in the Mediterranean, and particularly with the American
consuls in the ports of Great Britain, Ireland, Gibraltar and
Malta; with the bankers and navy agents of the United
States in the Mediterranean, at London, and at Amsterdam.
It has occasionally corresponded with the ambassadors and
ministers at this court of Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Wiirtem-
berg, France, Spain and Portugal, and Denmark. Every
American who has a claim of any kind upon the British
government calls for the interposition of influence in some
shape or other of his minister. Every projector of absurd
projects, every inventor of impossible inventions, whose
wonder-working genius is not duly esteemed and encouraged
by this government, calls for patronage upon the minister
of the republic, where freedom reigns and talents are justly
appreciated. Newgate and Bedlam sometimes relieve me
from correspondents of this class, but the succession of them
is as uninterrupted as that of the See of Rome from St. Peter
to Pius the 7th. I have made it throughout my public life
a general rule to be accessible to all persons, and to answer
all letters of solicitation or otherwise requiring answers.
Some exceptions to this rule are unavoidable. I have hith-
erto invariably acted upon it, excepting when there were
special reasons for departing from it. But the multitudes
of people, who in person or in writing apply for what cannot
be granted, and often for what is improper, are so importu-
nate, so unreasonable, sometimes so insolent, and consume
544
THE WRITINGS OF [1816
so much time, that I really know not how to blame persons
as much or still more exposed to such interruptions, who
act upon a different rule and shut their doors, their ears,
and their eyes, against intruders of every kind.
One would imagine that the American legation at London
was the moon of Ariosto, or Milton's Paradise of Fools, the
place where things lost upon earth were to be found. We
have sometimes applications for estates that once were
granted to British subjects, and sometimes for payment of
the paper money of the revolutionary war. One comes in
search of a suspected inheritance, and another of a conjec-
tural genealogy. One gentleman has written to ascertain
whether he is not a kinsman of Captain Trenchard of the
American navy, and another, both personally and by letter,
has applied to know whether Mr. Jared Ingersoll of Philadel-
phia is not his cousin? An English father intreats me to find
his son, a sailor, who he hears entered the American service
after having been taken in the Macedonian, and the friends
of a beautiful young lady in America ask my assistance to
hunt up her father in England. Good offices of this kind it
is impossible to refuse, but the applications which have been
most painful to me were those of women, Americans them-
selves, or connected with Americans, and in circumstances
of distress which it was utterly out of my power to relieve.
Not long since an English lady who has a husband of very
respectable standing at New York wrote to ask me the means
of maintaining herself and a sick daughter, and of finishing
the education of her son whom she proposed to present after-
wards to my patronage — all this to be at the expense of the
public. When I answered that this was impossible, she re-
quested a supply of money, offering some fine table linen in
pawn for it. At last she wrote me asking my interposition
with the treasurer of his majesty's navy to obtain immediate
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 545
payment of wages due to one of her sons, deceased. Her
son, an American and a gentleman, in the midst of the late
war between the United States and Great Britain had entered
the British naval service, and distinguished himself in fight-
ing against his country in the battle on Lake Champlain.
It was for the wages of this service she requested my inter-
cession for the payment of them to her. I now thought it
time to ask her not to favor me with any more of her letters.
I have at last had my private audience of the Queen and
my wife has been presented at the Drawing Room, both, of
course, "most graciously received." ! The Prince Regent
has been confined with the gout at Brighton, but is to return
this week to London.
I am etc.
TO JOSEPH PITCAIRN
London, 27th March, 18 16.
Dear Sir:
Your favor of 12th February came to hand on the 5th in-
stant, and the day before yesterday I received the package
containing Bode's Uranographia, with the volume and papers
belonging to it all in good condition. In returning you my
thanks for your kindness in executing this commission I now
beg leave to trouble you with another. It is to procure an-
other copy of the same work equally complete. To have it
packed in the same manner, to send it by any trusty captain
or passenger of any vessel going from Hamburg direct to
Boston, who will take charge of it and have it addressed:
"To the Rev. John Thornton Kirkland, President of Har-
vard University, Cambridge near Boston, for the use of the
1 See Adams, Memoirs, March 21, 1816.
546 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
observatory. To be delivered at Boston to the Hon. John
Davis, Treasurer of the University, or to John Lowell Esq.,
a member of the corporation," either of whom is requested
to forward it to President Kirkland. And with it I will
thank you to write a line to Doctor Kirkland, informing
him that it comes from me as a small token of filial attach-
ment to the University. The cost and charges please to
deduct from the balance in your hands.
It gives me pleasure to learn that the trade from the
United States with Hamburg during the last year has been
so profitable to the concerned. The merchants here com-
plain that theirs has not been of late so beneficial. But com-
plaint is one of the articles of an English merchant's stock.
The exchange with all the world is in their favor, while they
are bewailing the unparalleled distress and utter ruin of
their trade. . . .
TO WILLIAM EUSTIS
Ealing, 29 March, 18 16.
Dear Sir:
The latest news we have from home came down to the
20th of last month. There is a correspondence between the
Secretary of State and the Spanish Minister Onis, which
looks as old O'Brien, sometime prisoner and sometime consul
at Algiers, used to write, squally. It was said that Onis had
left Washington in high dudgeon and that all communica-
tion between our government and him was broken off. This
is since contradicted, but the federal papers say that he
complains, and justly complains, that the government have
not published all the correspondence. The European dip-
lomats in America always take a foolish fancy to negotiate
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 547
with the people. Genet, Yrujo, Jackson, all had an uncon-
trollable itching to play the demagogue in the garb of an
ambassador. Onis has not learnt to be wise from others'
harm. He is repeating the same experiment, and I trust
will meet with the same success; but you and I know full
well that if Beelzebub had a plenipotentiary at Washington
who should complain of ill treatment from the American
government, the federalists of the Hartford Convention
crew would cheer him and cry encore to his complaints.
Mr. Erving was, on the 9th of February, at Boston, about
to embark I believe for France: at least he has directed a
correspondent here to send letters for him to the care of
Hottinguer at Paris. From thence I suppose he means to
go to Madrid by land.1 I most earnestly hope that we shall
not get involved in a war with Spain; for although it might
not immediately, I am persuaded it would in the end, plunge
us into a new contest with this country. I have reason to
believe that no cession of Florida to Great Britain has been,
or is, in contemplation. The finances of this country now
labor to such a degree, and they are settling such an enor-
mous peace establishment, that it is of inexpressible im-
portance to us to gain time for introducing some order into
1 "The vivacity of the Chevalier Onis at Washington has by some of our accounts
been such that I have not been without fears an explosion would again arrest you
on your way. I have no official intelligence, but the latest news is not quite so
threatening as they had been before. Pray save us from a rupture, if possible. As
to any dishonorable concession, I know that is out of the question, and God forbid
I should propose it; but keep the peace, if you possibly can. Indeed we must not
look with contempt to a war with Spain; nor must we expect it will be a quarrel
with Spain alone. A little patience, a little time, is important to us beyond ex-
pression. You see we have no finances, and with more real means and greater
potential resources than any other nation upon the globe, how near have we been
to a shameful bankruptcy. A year of peace has scarcely brought us any percep-
tible relief, and to go to war again without ways and means provided, would bo
stark staring madness." To George W. Erving, March 28, 1816. Ms.
548 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
our finances, and obtaining some command of our resources.
Mr. Dallas's annual report on the finances shows them in a
more unfavorable light than I had anticipated. He pro-
poses a bank, and a bill for that purpose was brought in;
but I hear nothing of its progress, and recollecting that in
the extremity of need last winter before the peace was known
this measure could not be carried through, I cannot be very
sanguine in the expectation that the present attempt will
be more successful. A doubt has been suggested to me
whether the subscription will be filled, even if the bill should
pass. It is said that the control given to the government
over the bank is too great, and the conditions prescribed to
the corporation are too burdensome; but I think myself
that if the bill passes, the subscription will not fail. Your
prediction that our six per cent stock would rise to par after
January may be realized, if the bank should be established;
but as yet there are no symptoms of it. They have indeed
risen at Boston to 87, and are here at 85; but as there is to
be a new loan here, and the stocks of this country will
probably not rise, there will be a corresponding check upon
the rise of ours in this market. The noise and clamors about
the agricultural and commercial distresses of this country,
and above all about the property tax, which have been ex-
cited here since the meeting of Parliament, have certainly
reached you, but you have not been the dupe of their ex-
aggeration. The distress is in a very great degree imaginary.
As to commerce the balance of exchange with all the world
is at this very moment largely in favor of England. The
farmers, to be sure, whose corn and flour have fallen to half
the price they bore in time of war, find an increased diffi-
culty in paying their rent, their tithes, and their taxes.
The rents of course have been lowered, and that has touched
the interest of the landlords and made them clamorous. But
i8i6J JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 549
to talk of their distress is a burlesque upon the word. The
tithes which cannot be reduced press harder in proportion
to the diminished means of the farmer, and here and there
you hear a half suppressed groan under them. But the
frenzy of churchism is indissolubly bound up with the frenzy
of loyalty, and is indeed by far the strongest portion of the
compound. The tithes cannot be touched, without in-
fringing upon the rights of property, and they are not pre-
pared for that yet. Nor if they should be, would they dare
to begin with the property of the church. As to the taxes,
John Bull has made up his account to be relieved from a part
of them, and the only mistake of the ministers has been in
the amount to which it became necessary to indulge him in
this humor. They attempted to retain a part of the prop-
erty tax, more I imagine for the sake of the principle than
for the sum they expected now to raise by it. But John in-
sisted upon having it all given up, and the popular outcry
has overawed the House of Commons, and produced to the
universal astonishment a majority upon that one question
against the ministers. John shouts and chuckles prodi-
giously at his victory, but it amounts to nothing. The House
of Commons is already frightened at its own success. It has
a compunctious terror of having turned Jacobin. The peace
establishment of 150,000 men, the annual expenditure of
30 millions, pass in spite of all opposition; they 'suffer the
ministers to tell them that by refusing the property tax they
have made the debt of 800 millions eternal. All their answer
is, "Borrow more money, borrow on; only* don't tax, and
don't touch the sinking fund. The sinking fund pays off
twelve millions of debt a year. Borrow fifteen, but don't
touch the sinking fund." And so for this year will it end —
an immense war establishment under the name of peace;
an increase instead of a diminution of the public debt; and
55o
THE WRITINGS OF I1816
preachments without end on all sides about retrenchment
and economy. While such a system can be maintained, I
shall hold the outcry about distress to be a fable.
I am etc.
TO THE SECRETARY OF STATE
[James Monroe]
London, 30 March, 18 16.
Sir:
A few days since Mr. Del Real, residing here as a deputy
from New Granada, called upon me and inquired if I had
any knowledge of the arrival at Washington of Mr. Peter
Qual in a similar capacity from that country. I told him
that I had heard generally that there were at Washington
deputies from the South American Provinces but not par-
ticularly the name of that gentleman. Mr. Del Real said
he knew of his arrival at New York but had not heard from
him at Washington. He then inquired what foundation
there was for a rumor generally circulating here of a rup-
ture between the United States and Spain. I knew nothing
further than had appeared in the English newspapers. I had
heard of a correspondence in December and January be-
tween the Secretary of State and the Spanish Minister which
had been communicated by the President to Congress and
the supposed substance of which had been published here.
It had further been said that about the 12th of last month
Mr. Onis had left Washington and that all communication
between the American government had been broken off.
Later accounts equally unauthenticated contradicted this
last circumstance but repeated that Mr. Onis had left Wash-
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 551
ington much dissatisfied. It was impossible for me to say
what the real state of relations between the United States
and Spain were but as to the question of peace or war I was
persuaded it would depend upon Spain herself. If the de-
mands of Air. Onis had been such as they were represented
the American government neither would nor could comply
with them. The present course of Spanish policy was in-
comprehensible. If such demands were made, it could not
but be with a knowledge that they must and would be re-
fused. In ordinary cases the very making of such demands
would imply a settled determination of the power advancing
them to follow up the refusal of them by immediate war.
If such was the intention of Spain the United States would
have no alternative left but to defend themselves. But
they had no desire for a war with Spain. As to the South
American Provinces struggling for their independence the
general sentiment in the United States was certainly in their
favor. But the policy of the government, a policy dictated
equally by their duty to their own country, by their state of
amity with Spain and by their good will to the South Amer-
icans themselves, was a strict and impartial neutrality
between them and Spain. I said by their good will for the
South Americans themselves, because the neutrality of the
United States was more advantageous to them, by securing
to them the neutrality also of Great Britain, than any sup-
port which the United States could give them by declaring
in their favor and making common cause with them, the
effect of which probably would be to make Great Britain
declare against both. He was aware that the popular feeling
in this country was now favorable to the South Americans,
more so than the dispositions of the present ministry. They
complied so far with the prevailing opinion as to observe a
neutrality. But the same popular sentiment here, he knew,
552 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
was very strong against the North Americans, and if the
United States were openly to join the cause of South America,
and consequently be engaged in a war with Spain, the British
people would immediately consider them as the principals
in the contest, all their jealousies and national antipathies
would be enlisted against the common American cause; and
as they were even now tormented with an uneasy hankering
for war which they think would relieve them from their em-
barrassments, then ministers would take advantage of these
passions and engage this nation upon the side of Spain,
merely because the United States would be on the other side.
He said he was perfectly convinced of the justice of these
observations. I asked him if he had any knowledge of an
Order in Council lately issued here, prohibiting all British
subjects from supplying arms, ammunition and warlike stores
to the South Americans. He said he had not. That the
professed system of this government had always been and
continued to be neutrality. That they allowed a free inter-
course between Jamaica and the South American continent,
and had given orders to their Admiral on the station not to
molest the independent flag, and had refused to deliver up
vessels bearing it which had entered their ports. But when-
ever applied to for an acknowledgment of the independent
governments, they had declined upon the ground of their
engagements with Spain. I had shortly before had some
conversation upon these subjects with Count Fernan Nunez,
the Spanish Ambassador at this court, who spoke to me
with some courteous expressions of concern of this abrupt
departure of Mr. Onis from Washington, which he said was
altogether unexpected to him, though he supposed Onis
could not have acted without orders. He then referred to
the points which had been mentioned in the summary pub-
lished here of your correspondence with Onis. He thought
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 553
the expeditions from Kentucky and Tennessee might justly
be considered by the Spanish as offensive, and that after the
surrender of Carthagena there was no insurgent government,
and that all vessels under its pretended flag were to be con-
sidered and treated as pirates. I said that I had no knowl-
edge what the alleged expeditions from Kentucky and Ten-
nessee were, but was very sure that they had no countenance
from the government of the United States. The President's
proclamation had on the contrary warned all the citizens of
the United States against engaging in any enterprise hostile
to Spain. He said that the proceedings complained of were
subsequent to the proclamation. I replied that if any illegal
combination for such a purpose had been formed at a dis-
tance from the seat of government, it was to be considered
that the government of the United States had not the same
means of immediate or of complete control over them as in
similar cases were possessed by European governments.
They had an open country. No barrier of fortified cities to
stop persons intending to pass the frontier. No army or
corps of gendarmerie to support and give efficacy to meas-
ures of police, and no authority to arrest individuals or dis-
perse assemblages, until possessed of proof that they have
committed acts, or are in the process of committing acts in
violation of the law. With these considerations I was very
sure that if any such expeditions had been undertaken, they
had neither been sanctioned nor connived at by the Ameri-
can government. That they would on the contrary in the
manner and according to the forms allowed by our Constitu-
tions be ultimately and effectually prevented, unless this
impatience and heat of Mr. Onis should precipitate the two
countries into a state of hostility which we sincerely dep-
recated. That as to commercial intercourse with the in-
dependents and the admission of their flags into our ports,
554 THE WRITINGS OF [1816
this he knew was conformable to the received usages of
nations. It was practised in this case by Great Britain, the
closest ally of Spain, and no one knew better than he that
she had refused either to interdict the commerce with the
insurgents to her subjects, or to exclude their flag from her
ports. He at first nodded assent to these remarks, and I
observed that if his colleague, Onis, was ordered to demand
his passports for causes such as these, I should expect to
hear that he, Fernan Nunez, had also left this court without
taking leave, as the causes of offence to Spain were the same
here as had been alleged by him at Washington. The Count
said he did not know what Onis' orders were, and in truth
it was not his concern; but for himself he was pretty well
satisfied with what he had lately obtained here against the
insurgents. By which I understood him to allude to the
recent Order in Council which I mentioned to Mr. Del Real,
but of which he had not heard. Fernan Nunez is a man of
great softness of manners and politeness of demeanor, and
throughout the whole of this conversation preserved the
most perfect good humor.
I have the honor to inclose copies of a note which I have
received from Lord Castlereagh with a report from Sir George
Cockburn to the Secretary of the Admiralty, Mr. Croker,
concerning the taking and carrying away of Mr. Downman's
slaves. You will not fail to perceive that the admiral, like
Captain Barrie, disclaims all knowledge of the transaction
whatever, and that the effort and tendency of both their
letters is to excite doubts with regard to the truth of Mr.
Downman's statement in his memorial to the President.
I have no doubt it will be easy and beg leave to suggest it
may be very important for Mr. Downman to furnish addi-
tional evidence of the facts and particulars which may lead
to the disclosure how and why the transportation in broad
i8i6] JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 555
day of eleven slaves to the British squadron, and by them
to Bermuda, could be effected without the knowledge of
either of the British commanding officers. Lord Castle-
reagh has not yet replied to any other of my late notes. You
may however consider it as certain that the proposal to dis-
arm upon the lakes will not be accepted. In all the late
debates in Parliament upon what they call their military
and naval peace establishments, the prospect of a new war
with the United States has been distinctly held up by the
ministers and admitted by the opposition as a solid reason
for enormous and unparalleled expenditure and preparation
in Canada and Nova Scotia. We hear nothing now about
the five frigates and the bits of striped bunting. The strain
is in a higher mood. Lord Castlereagh talks of the great
and growing military power of the United States. The
Marquis of Lansdowne, an opposition leader and one of the
loudest trumpets for retrenchment and economy, still com-
mends the ministers for having been beaten into the policy
of having a naval superiority upon the lakes. And one of
the Lords of the Admiralty told the House of Commons last
Monday, that bumboat expeditions and pinchback admin-
istrations would no longer do for Canada. That English-
men must lay their account for fighting battles in fleets of
three deckers on the North American lakes. All this is upon
the principle of preserving peace by being prepared for war.
But it shows to demonstration what will be the fate of the
proposal for disarming. I had last week my first private
audience of the Queen. I beg leave to observe that in the
case of a new appointment to this court it would be expedient
to furnish the minister with a letter to her Majesty. It is
a usual compliment, to the omission of which she is not in-
sensible. I am etc.
556 WRITINGS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS [1816
TO HENRY JACKSON
Ealing, 31st March, 1816.
My Dear Sir:
I have received your obliging favor of the 22nd instant,
inclosing Massena's pamphlet,1 for which I pray you to ac-
cept my thanks. I regret to learn that Mr. Lee has got in-
volved in such unpleasant contests at Bordeaux. The situa-
tion of all the consuls of the United States in France must
undoubtedly be such, as to require the exercise on their part
of the greatest prudence and forbearance. Their own offi-
cial rights, and the rights of our countrymen as foreigners
of a friendly nation, must doubtless be maintained with
temperate firmness. But in asserting them, the real situa-
tion of the French government must be duly considered in
the way of allowance, while every offensive allusion to it
should be avoided in the way of discussion. If any of our
countrymen suffer wrong, the remonstrances against it
should be made in a tone of calmness, of moderation, and of
respect, at least as strongly marked as would have been
suitable in the most triumphant period of the reign of Napo-
leon. That your own situation should be disagreeable I
lament, though readily perceiving that it cannot be other-
wise.
• ••••••
1 Memoire sur les Evenements en Provence, Mars et Avril, 1815. Paris, 1816.
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